ISLAMABAD, July 30 Prime Minister's Adviser on Finance and Economic Affairs Shaukat Tarin made a low-key entry to the Senate on Thursday after a mysterious rise to a political position credited to President Asif Ali Zardari, at the cost of a longstanding PPP loyalist.

The former banker's induction with his oath-taking as a Senator, only a day after the Election Commission notified his unopposed election as senator from Sindh province, passed off as a little-sung event before the upper house was prematurely prorogued after a dull seven-day session.

A new PPP face, Senator Islamuddin Sheikh from Sindh, apparently tried to initiate a round of congratulations for Mr Tarin immediately after the new senator's oath-taking at the start of the sitting but he was checkmated by presiding officer Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of the MQM on the ground that no other proceeding could take place before the end of the question hour.

But nobody from the PPP or its coalition parties stood up to welcome Mr Tarin's new position after the question hour and only PML-N's Mrs Najma Hameed offered only a loaded congratulation while speaking on a point of order, urging him to “prove himself as a people's representative rather than a banker”.

Mr Tarin's election to the Senate, which will qualify him to be named a federal minister, had become a political compulsion for the 16-month-old PPP-led coalition government to escape frequent opposition taunts about the absence of a full finance minister, who must be parliament member, since the portfolio was withdrawn last year from Privatisation Minister and National Assembly member Naveed Qamar.

But the PPP leadership took apparently a mysterious path to rectify the situation after Minister of State for Finance Hina Rabbani Khar was asked to present the second budget of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's cabinet in June.

PPP's respected senator Dr Javaid R. Leghari suddenly resigned earlier this month without explaining reasons, but sparking speculation that probably the most highly qualified member of the present parliament was asked to quit by President Zardari in his capacity as PPP co-chairman.

Mr Leghari's departure from the Senate, to which he was elected for a technocrat's seat in March 2006 for a six-year term was lamented in the house on Tuesday by an estranged PPP senator, Safdar Abbasi, who regretted his former colleague and head of the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology had acted “in haste” without even saying a formal goodbye.

But Mr Abbasi, speaking on a point of order, declined to go into the unexplained circumstances of Mr Leghari's resignation or what he called possible “repercussions of his replacement” as the ex-senator was the choice of assassinated PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.As on its other four working days since the present session opened on July 24, the Senate had very little official business on the agenda besides the question hour on Thursday — only the laying of the Benazir Income Support Programme Ordinance 2009 before the house and a call-attention notice on what its two Jamaat-i-Islami movers called non-regularisation of the services of 300 contractual employees of the Federal Bureau of Statistics.

However several opposition members made use of points of order allowed by the chair to air issues like an alleged government move to have a new submarine purchase deal with France instead of one negotiated with Germany, the law and order situation in the country, alleged excesses by the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) in Balochistan and Wednesday's police action against a demonstration held in Islamabad in protest against the government plans to dissolve the present local bodies pending elections under new laws to be framed by provinces.

Jamhoori Watan Party's Shahid Hassan Bugti, although a government ally, accused the FC of doing in Balochistan what Nazi Germany's troops did in France and other occupied European territories during World War II and said some forces, which he did not specify, were seeking to break up the federation of Pakistan.

PML-N's Raja Zafarul Haq propose that Prime Minister Gilani call a meeting of the four provincial chief ministers and consult social scientists to devise a strategy to tackle the prevalent law and order.

Some opposition members shouted in protest as the chair read out the president's order to prorogue the house, which they sad should have continued until August 7 under a parliamentary calendar.