With little hope of success, a commission constituted to carve out a new South Punjab and Bahawalpur province is still plodding on – and is scheduled to meet again on December 10.
Both previous meetings were boycotted by the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), over the composition of the commission.
The chairman of the parliamentary commission, Senator Farhatullah Babar, told The Express Tribune that the commission will continue its work even if the opposition does not attend the meeting, but at the same time, added, “The commission requests the opposition to join the effort.”
Meanwhile, a PML-N member of the commission, Chaudry Saud Majeed, linked the attendance of his party to the fulfilment of its demands.
“We will not attend the meeting if the government does not fulfil our demands with regard to the composition of the commission,” he said while talking to The Express Tribune.
The PML-N has said there is no representation from the Punjab Assembly in the commission. It has also opposed Senator Babar’s chairmanship while pointing out that he is President Asif Ali Zardari’s spokesperson. “The commission is related to Punjab and members of the Punjab assembly should have proper representation,” Majeed added.
The PML-N member also pointed out that the commission consists of six members from Southern Punjab and only five from Bahawalpur – Majeed alleged that this was done to outvote Bahawalpur’s revival, since it was his party that supported the revival.
Earlier in July, President Zardari had asked the National Assembly speaker to formally initiate a process for carving out two separate provinces in Punjab and asked that a report be submitted to the president as well as the prime minister within 30 days of its notification in the official gazette.
The commission was told to “Look into the issues relating to the fair distribution of economic and financial resources, demarcation, allocation /readjustment of seats in the National Assembly, Senate and the concerned provincial assembly and allocation of seats in the new province on basis of population, including seats of minorities and women and other constitutional, legal and administrative matters. The provisions of the constitution which would require amendment inter alia include Articles 1(2), 51, 59 and 106 of the Constitution.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2012.
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