ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties are likely to boycott a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Corona­virus Disease on Nov 25 in line with its previous decision to stay away from all meetings to be presided over by National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser due to his alleged biased conduct.

When the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) categorically announced that it would not attend the meeting, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said though they had also decided to stay away from the meetings under the speaker, a final decision about the participation in the Nov 25 meeting would be announced after consultation with other constituent parties of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

“We have decided not to attend the (Nov 25) meeting called by the speaker,” declared PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb in categorical terms, when contacted on Sunday.

The PML-N has already announced suspension of all its activities due to the death of the mother of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif in London on Sunday.

NA speaker has been accused of being biased

The National Assembly Secretariat has issued an agenda for the Nov 25 meeting of the parliamentary committee which includes “matters relating to the session of the National Assembly due to Covid-19 and briefing on coronavirus disease”.

A spokesman for the National Assembly Secretariat said that National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman Lt-Gen Muhammad Afzal and senior officials of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) had been invited to attend the meeting.

This will be the third occasion in the past six weeks that the opposition would boycott the meeting under the speaker.

Earlier, the speaker had to cancel the parliamentary leaders’ meeting which he convened on Nov 11 for “a briefing by military officials on the current issues of national security” after all opposition parties decided to stay away from it.

According to sources in the government, the main objective of the briefing was to make an effort to develop a national consensus on granting “provisional provincial status” to strategically-located Gilgit-Baltistan. Although there was no official confirmation from the government or the Inter-Services Public Relations, the sources had said that Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Lt Gen Faiz Hameed were to conduct the briefing.

Information secretary of the opposition’s 11-party PDM Mian Iftikhar Hussain through a statement had made the announcement regarding their decision to boycott the meeting under the speaker, accusing him of being biased and “suppressing the opposition’s voice in the assembly”.

“The constituent parties of the PDM will not attend the parliamentary leaders’ meeting that has been convened on Nov 11 and the decision has been made after consultation with all component parties of the alliance,” Mr Hussain had stated.

“The government has failed to resolve the people’s problems and control price hike. The government, which has failed at every front, has become a real threat to the national security itself,” the PDM leader stated.

Mr Hussain alleged that the speaker had also failed to run the assembly according to rules and parliamentary traditions. He said there was a “ban” on raising public issues in parliament and “the state affairs are being run in violation of the Constitution”.

“Under these circumstances, no meaningful talks can be held,” Mr Hussain added.

Similarly, the speaker had to cancel a meeting of the parliamentary leaders on Sept 28 which he had convened to discuss elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had himself announced that his party would not become a part of any parliamentary committee under the speaker for his biased conduct during the last joint sitting of parliament on Sept 16.

On the other hand, a spokesman for the speaker refuted the opposition’s allegations and termed them “factually incorrect”.

Talking to Dawn, he quoted the speaker as saying that he had always provided opportunity and freedom to opposition members to speak on the floor of the house which was evident from the fact that during the budget debate, they were given more than the allocated time.

The opposition parties in their joint declaration issued after the Sept 20 multiparty conference had declared that they would not cooperate with the government inside and outside the parliament.

This will be the fifth meeting of the committee, headed by NA Speaker Asad Qaiser and comprising a number of political heavyweights.

Prominent members of the committee are Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Information Minister Shibli Faraz, Housing Minister Chaudhry Tariq Bashir Cheema, Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, parliamentary leader of PML-N in the National Assembly and Senate Khwaja Asif and Mushahidullah Khan, respectively, PPP’s Raja Pervez Ashraf and Sherry Rehman, Asad Mehmood and Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, Usman Kakar of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, chief of the Balochistan National Party Sardar Akhtar Mengal and Amir Haider Hoti of the Awami National Party.

Besides these members, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar, Adviser to the PM on Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Adviser on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan and Special Assistant to the PM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan are ex-officio members of the committee.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2020