LAHORE:
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) submitted a privilege notice against the leader of the PML-Q’s ‘unification bloc’ on Tuesday.
The bloc comprises 47 dissidents of the PML-Q in the Punjab Assembly that is loyal to Nawaz Sharif’s faction of the PML.
Of the 137 members who signed the privilege motion against unification bloc’s leader Dr Tahir Ali Javed, 108 are from the PPP, while 29 are from the PML-Q. The parties unanimously appealed in the notice that a debate be allowed in the coming session of the assembly. Once the house approves it, the notice be passed on to the privilege committee, they urged. “Dr Javed’s proposal to dissolve the assembly is unconstitutional and undemocratic,” the notice said. Javed, who had been elected on a PML-Q ticket, and has established a dissident bloc, made the call to dissolve the Punjab Assembly on the directions of the Punjab government, the notice said, further claiming that the proposal was only made to stop the forthcoming Senate elections.
Chairman of the committee on privilege motions, Malik Muhammad Waris Kallu, told The Express Tribune that the present Punjab Assembly is unique in a way because he has so far received seven privilege motions against assembly members. In 64 years no one had submitted a privilege motion against elected members in any assembly, the chairman said. Kallu said that if the motion is forwarded to the committee, then he would call both parties.
So far, privilege motions have been submitted against Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, PML-Q MPA Samian Khawar Hayat and PPP MPA Uzma Bukhari.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 12th, 2011.
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