ISLAMABAD, Aug 26: People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) has called for secret balloting on the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz which is to be put up for voting in the National Assembly on Tuesday (August 29).

In a statement issued here on Saturday, PPP Senator Dr Babar Awan asked Chief Election Commissioner to issue a direction to the speaker and secretary of the National Assembly to hold secret ballot in order to enable the parliamentarians to exercise their right of vote in accordance with the spirit of the constitution.

He said this electoral mode of maintaining secrecy of ballot was enshrined in various articles of 1973 Constitution. He said secrecy in election was given paramount consideration in the electoral laws in Pakistan.

Mr Awan said secret balloting had remained the mode to ensure secrecy starting from the elections to the local bodies and then rising up to polls for the provincial assemblies and the parliament. He cited Article 226 of the constitution which reads that “All elections under the Constitution be by the secret ballot.”

The senator said Article 95 of the constitution which dealt with vote of no confidence motion against the prime minister did not talk about the mode of voting which shall be adopted by the National Assembly.

He stressed that a vote means an exercise of a choice by the voter through a secret ballot. Other then this there is no mode of voting provided at all in terms of Article 226 of the constitution.

He also referred to Article 218 which provided for permanent Election Commission for achieving the purposes of election to the parliament, provincial assemblies and for election of such other public offices as might be specified by law.

Our staff reporter adds: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Saturday criticised the Sindh government for its decision to ban teachers’ unions in the province and for baton-charge by police during a teachers’ rally in Karachi.

Speaking at a news conference here, PPP Secretary-General Raja Pervez Ashraf, MNA from Kasur Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, MNA from Larkana Khalid Iqbal Memon and media coordinator Nazir Dhoki lashed out at the Sindh government for issuing termination orders of more than 100 teachers in the province.

Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed said the party members had already staged a token walkout at the National Assembly on Tuesday and it would again raise the issue on the floor of the house on Monday.

He alleged that as a result of the police brutalities, a teacher of Badin, Abdul Waheed Nizamani, had died. He said the teachers wanted to hold a protest march in Karachi from press club to the Governor’s House when the police stopped them and baton-charged them.

As a result, he said, hundreds of teachers suffered serious injuries, including fractures.

The PPP leaders claimed that so far some 3,500 teachers had been arrested throughout the province.

They said this attitude of the Sindh and federal governments against the teachers would also be cited in the charge-sheet against the prime minister.