PRIME Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi shakes hands with Leader of the Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah in the National Assembly on Thursday.—PPI
ISLAMABAD: Despite having a rare agreement over the draft of the bill, the defection-hit ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and opposition parties — the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) — had to labour for ensuring the presence of at least 228 members (two-thirds of the 342-member house) that is mandatory for passing a constitution amendment bill.
The bill, which will be numbered as the 25th Constitution Amendment Bill, was tabled by Law Minister Chaudhry Bashir Mahmood Virk after a wait for more than two hours.
Dawar Khan Kundi, a PTI dissident from Dera Ismail Khan, was the only dissenting vote after the lawmakers of two government allies — the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) and the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) — which chose to walk out from the assembly ahead of the vote as a mark of protest.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which had earlier declared that it would not support the bill, finally voted in its favour after Shah Mehmood Qureshi of the PTI, Railways Minister Saad Rafique and the PPP’s Syed Naveed Qamar persuaded it to do so on the condition that Dr Farooq Sattar would be allowed to speak out his party’s reservations over the move.
National Assembly passes landmark bill to merge tribal areas with KP; JUI-F, PkMAP boycott vote
Both JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and PkMAP president Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who have been forcefully opposing the planned merger of the tribal areas with KP, preferred to stay away from the proceedings, perhaps anticipating that they could face the wrath of the majority of the members for their stance.
Maulana Fazl is reportedly in Saudi Arabia these days and there was talk in the galleries that he had been sent there by the government as a face-saving measure.
In the absence of the two leaders, Fata MNA Jamaluddin and Naeema Kishwar of the JUI-F and Abdul Qahar Khan of the PkMAP reiterated their party position and termed the passage of the bill an act that could have “dangerous consequences” for the country.
“Today is a black day as the parliament is about to remove the name of Fata from the country’s constitution,” said Jamaluddin, alleging that Fata was being merged with KP as part of a foreign agenda.
Jamaluddin said the PML-N and the PTI “curse each other” all the time, but today they joined hands to “usurp the rights of Fata people”.
Qahar Khan said Fata people should be given the right to decide about their own future. He said, “The people of Fata want their own province, their own chief minister, their own governor and their own public service commission.”
The JUI-F and PkMAP members also targeted Imran Khan and Sheikh Rashid in their speeches, saying “those who have been cursing the parliament until now are today sitting here without having any regret.”
Dr Farooq Sattar delivered an emotional speech which was frequently interrupted by the PPP members when he called for creation of more provinces in the country on administrative grounds.
The MQM members threatened to stage a walkout from the house before the voting when the PPP members started raising slogans during Dr Sattar’s speech as he indirectly called for creation of Karachi province. The MQM members, however, were prevented from staging the walkout by Shah Mehmood Qureshi who also requested the PPP members to stay calm and allow the MQM leader to wind up his speech.
Dr Sattar said the MQM was supporting the bill “only for the sake of political unity” as the party still believed that Fata should be turned into a separate province and a referendum should be conducted in the area to seek the people’s opinion.
Farooq Sattar also called for the formation of 19 provinces — including Karachi — on administrative grounds before recalling that in the past the MQM had put forth bills for creation of provinces of southern Punjab, Hazara and Fata. He said the KP alone should be divided into four administrative units.