ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties and a government ally boycotted the National Assembly (NA) midway through its sitting on Thursday - the third day of protests at a perceived disregard of the house by ministers and bureaucracy.

The boycott by the lawmakers of PPP, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), and a walkout by the Jamaat-i-Islami on a different issue deprived the house of its quorum, cutting short the day’s proceedings.

Ministerial front benches were empty as on the previous two days of the current session, which were marked by complaints that ministers and bureaucracy were showing lack of interest in the proceeding of the house.

The sudden arrival of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the senior-most member of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s cabinet, after PPP’s senior member Naveed Qamar had announced that: “We can’t be part of this house with this attitude” (of the government) came too late to attract enough members of the ruling PML-N to be anywhere near the quorum of 86 members in the 342-seat house.

Strangely, the trigger for the opposition action came after a pep talk by the PkMAP’s Mahmood Khan Achakzai about the powers of the NA and its standing committees to summon any citizen or official in the country from a secretary to a general after Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed and Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi talked of a stern notice taken by Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on the previous day of alleged bureaucratic lapses during the question hour.

Constitutionally, the NA is the source of all power and its standing committees can summon any citizen, suspend officials for six months and send them to jail, Mr Achakzai noted.

He also pointed out the assembly’s power to elect and remove a prime minister, and change the Constitution except its basic structure.

But Mr Qamar of the PPP said the assembly was not getting its due respect and asked: “For how long this house will function only as a debating society” and where else in the world ministers refrain from coming to parliament?

He said he was glad that the Senate, which has PPP’s Raza Rabbani as its chairman had enforced the required ministerial and bureaucratic attendance but complained that the same was not the case in the NA.

“With this attitude (from the government) we cannot be part of this house,” Mr Qamar said as he led opposition lawmakers out of the house in what seemed to be a boycott, at least for the rest of the day, which was also joined by Mr Achakzai.

The Jamaat members present in the house also walked out after one of them, Sher Akbar Khan, protested against what he called 18 to 20 hours of electricity loadshedding in his constituency of Buner area in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

While the deputy speaker, who chaired the proceedings at the time, seemed denying the impression of disregard of the house and promised stern action against any disobedience by officials, independent member Aamir Dogar from Multan drew his attention to the lack of quorum in the house.

After a head count by the assembly staff, the deputy speaker announced that the quorum was not complete, before adjourning the house until 10.30am on Friday.

Earlier, the deputy speaker informed the house that two unspecified officials had been suspended following a meeting called by the speaker in his chamber on Wednesday after suspending the question hour over alleged disregard of the business of the house by officials of some ministries.

And he confirmed the statement of Sheikh Aftab that two of the three secretaries summoned by the speaker had turned up at the meeting while a third, not present in Islamabad, was represented by an additional secretary.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2015

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