ISLAMABAD: Through a ruling, Senate Chairman Farooq H. Naek on Tuesday upheld his previous decision of appointing Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) as the opposition leader in the upper house, following the announcement by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) to support the JUI-F leader.

The opposition group led by Ishaq Dar of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) rejected the chairman's fresh ruling and termed it “politically-motivated”. The group, which had boycotted the budget session of the Senate, announced that it would devise its future strategy at a meeting before start of the new session of the upper house on Thursday afternoon.

Mr Naek's fresh ruling just before assuming the office of acting president in the absence of President Asif Zardari has put the Dar-led opposition group in a difficult position as the session beginning on Thursday has been summoned by the chairman on the requisition notice submitted jointly by the supporters of Mr Dar and those of the MQM members mainly to discuss the Karachi situation.

“Since it is a requisitioned session, the moral responsibility of maintaining quorum in the house lies with the opposition senators and not the treasury members,” said a government adviser.

Meanwhile, sources in the PML-N told Dawn that the opposition senators in their Thursday's meeting would discuss the option of challenging the Senate chairman's ruling before the Supreme Court.

The chairman had reserved his ruling on the completion of an unprecedented legal debate on his controversial decision to appoint Maulana Haideri as the opposition leader.

During the debate, former law minister Babar Awan of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had stated that the proceedings of the parliament could not be challenged in any court.

Mr Dar in a statement here on Tuesday expressed his reservations over the chairman's fresh ruling and said if Mr Naek was to repeat his June 6 ruling then there was no need for holding the lengthy legal debate on the issue in the house. He alleged that the chairman had ignored the legal and constitutional arguments given by the senators during the debate.

The row over Maulana Haideri's appointment as opposition leader hit the budget proceedings of the upper house last month when a majority of the opposition senators boycotted the debate to register their protest over the chairman's controversial ruling.

The continued boycott and protest forced the chairman to agree on a review of his decision and through another ruling on June 8 proposed to the warring sides to sit with legal experts of the house for a debate to resolve the row.

The protesting senators agreed to the chairman's proposal, but refused to end their boycott of the session till the start of the debate which the house started after finalising its recommendations on the budget.

The JUI-F, which is the largest opposition parliamentary group with 10 senators and had submitted an application with the signatures of 11 members supporting Maulana Haideri as the opposition leader whereas PML-N's Ishaq Dar had submitted a similar application with the signatures of 24 senators belonging to the two splinter groups of the PML-Q, PML-N, PPP-Sherpao, Jamaat-i-Islami, National Party and Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party nominating him as the opposition leader.

The JUI-F, however, quietly manoeuvred and managed to grab the office of the opposition leader when they submitted a new application which carried signatures of five independents from Fata and two from Balochistan supporting Maulana Haideri.

Moreover, the number of JUI-F leader's supporters increased when the Senate chairman excluded the votes of nine PML-Q dissidents, who had opted to sit on the opposition benches despite the party leadership's decision to join the PPP-led ruling coalition, and nominated Mr Dar as the opposition leader.

Mr Dar challenged the new votes of independents, saying that these members had been sitting on the treasury benches for the past three years and could not support anyone for the office of opposition leader.

The last week's announcement by the MQM senators to support Maulana Haideri has made the situation more interesting as the strength of the opposition group led by JUI-F has increased to 24 and both the groups now have equal number of supporters.