After a tango to lead the bill for Hyd university, house passes resolution

The bill was moved by MQM MPA Syed Waseem Hussain and PPP MPA Farheen Mughal.

KARACHI: A war of words and brief negotiations finally put to rest the matter of establishing a university in Hyderabad as MPAs of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement jointly passed a resolution - moved by their own representatives from the city, MQM’s MPA Syed Waseem Hussain and PPP’s MPA Farheen Mughal.

The topic which has garnered media attention over the past few days, was brought up at the end of the legislation when the assembly session passed three bills to establish universities in Karachi. “While we welcome the government’s decision to establish universities in Lyari, Tano Muhammad Khan and other parts of the province, our party also moved a private bill on February 15 to set up a university in Hyderabad and we request you to take it up,” said MQM’s parliamentary leader, Syed Sardar Ahmed. “What is wrong with MQM giving a proposal to promote education by setting up a university in Hyderabad?  If you are afraid that this will increase votes for our party, then let me assume that we will get our share in any case.”

Faisal Subzwari opined that since the government was not willing to establish a public university in Hyderabad, they have no other option but to allow setting up a private university. “We demand that our bill should be taken up without any delay,” said Subzwari.

Law Minister Ayaz Soomro, however, said that the bill could not be taken up because it had been referred to the finance, education and law department for their consent. “There will be issues of funding,” he said, to which the MQM ministers replied that it would be a private university and the government does not need to worry about its funds.

Happy endings

Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazarul Haq, who had earlier reportedly opposed the idea to establish the university, clarified his stance - once again. “Hyderabad is my hometown - why would I oppose to a university being built there?”



He added that the government wanted to establish a public university, a summary for which has been pending with the chief minister.

Later, MQM leader Dr Sagheer Ahmed went over to Haq and after brief negotiations, the education minister announced that the government will establish the university in Hyderabad and leaders of both parties will meet the Sindh chief minister soon to expedite the process. “Our friends are insisting to pass the resolution before this legislation and we are ready for a joint resolution to be moved by the PPP and MQM,” said Haq.

The resolution was passed it unanimously.

The assembly also passed bills to establish the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto University of Law and to upgrade the status of Dawood Engineering and Technology College.

MQM to get opposition seats today

During the session, the acting  speaker of the assembly, Shehla Raza, announced that the opposition seats for those MQM MPAs who were not ministers will be allotted  today (Thursday). She was of the view that since the resignations given by the party’s ministers had not been accepted by the Sindh governor, she could not allot seats to them. “We will also start our scrutiny today before allotting the opposition seats,” she announced, adding that since MQM had temporarily nominated Moin Amir Pirzada as the opposition leader, the scrutiny of the opposition leader will also start today (Thursday) before announcing the slot to Pirzada.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2013.