On hold: Assembly adjourned till March 24

No explanation given, but an MPA says lawmakers heading to Imran’s house to celebrate Senate victory.

PESHAWAR: For the second time in the nearly six months that the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly has been in session, a sitting has been suddenly adjourned. The same had happened in February, hours before the house was supposed to meet.

The session which was meant to resume on Friday (today), after a three-day recess, has been deferred till March 24, an official at the Assembly Secretariat told The Express Tribune on Thursday.

The official gave no reasons for the sudden adjournment, but a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker requesting anonymity said the session has been postponed because the ruling party’s MPAs are heading to a luncheon hosted by PTI Chairman Imran Khan at his Bani Gala residence to celebrate the party’s victory in Senate polls last week.

The lawmaker also said election for the assembly’s deputy speaker post was also on the cards. “The deputy speaker is likely to be elected during the session beginning March 24,” he said.

Gallery and secretariat row

Incidentally, the recess came on the heels of a brewing confrontation between the Assembly Secretariat and the press gallery and other journalists’ organisations. The two sides have locked horns since the March 5 Senate polls after officials of the secretariat misbehaved with a female journalist.

Journalists have been boycotting the house proceedings since Monday; both sides have stuck to their guns and are refusing to budge from their respective positions.

On Wednesday, the Khyber Union of Journalists (KhUJ) announced an indefinite boycott of the house proceedings following the issuance of the secretariat’s version of the day’s events.

A statement issued by KhUJ stated the government and media organisations were on the cusp of settling the issue when the Assembly Secretariat sabotaged the process. The journalists’ body has decided to extend its protest if its demands are not met.

A six-month session

Interestingly, when the house meets again on March 24, the ongoing assembly session will enter its sixth month. The current session started in October last year and has been going on since with several adjournments.

The session, probably the longest in the history of K-P Assembly, is being prolonged due to government’s failure to elect a deputy speaker. The government has so far kept the elections pending because at least three groups within PTI want this seat for themselves, forcing it to stay its hand.

However, an insider says the government has decided to fill this vacant seat and it is likely to be done when lawmakers reconvene. It is not yet clear who among the three groups will get the seat.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 13^th, 2015.