ISLAMABAD, Feb 9: After a record sixth deferment of its constitution amendment bill on Thursday, the government said it would take opposition demands to the cabinet within two days, ensuring the National Assembly will remain hostage to a discord between the two sides into the next week.

A day after both sides reported headway in their talks, the Constitution (Twentieth Amendment) Bill, whose original draft seeks only to validate 28 challenged by-elections to seats of parliament and provincial assemblies — but which the opposition says should include stronger guarantees for free elections in the future — was on the house agenda for the sixth sitting, only to be put off again on what Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi called a request from the minister in charge.

Never before a bill was deferred so many times in this assembly, whose present session from Feb 1 was called primarily to pass the Twentieth Amendment bill after the Supreme Court gave up to Feb 6 to validate the 28 by-elections challenged on the ground that they were held over a period when the Election Commission was not complete, as required by the Eighteenth Amendment of 2010.

After a session of more than four hours on Wednesday, when both sides reported “important headway”, or “some headway”, only informal contacts were held on Thursday before the chief whip of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Khursheed Ahmed Shah, told reporters in the parliament house that a special meeting of the coalition government would be called in “a day or two” to approve what could be a revised draft of the bill to accommodate opposition demands, mainly from the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N).

While date of the cabinet meeting was not yet known and Saturday and Sunday are the usual weekend recess for parliament, the house will most probably not be able to consider the bill before Monday.

There were also whispers in the parliament house about some coalition partners being unhappy with the PPP conceding too much to the opposition. But nobody was prepared to speak on record about such differences, which could crop up in the promised cabinet meeting.

The prime minister made a brief appearance in the house during the question hour on Thursday, raising hopes he might give his views about what Mr Shah had on the previous day called an “important headway” in his team’s talks with one of PML-N led by opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who had spoken of only “some headway”.

But Mr Gilani left after a short while along with Mr Shah after a chat between them inside the house and both did not return afterwards.

With the constitution amendment bill out of the way for the day, the house was left with only a couple of call-attention notices and speeches on points of order before being adjourned to 10am on Friday.