The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-dominated Sindh Assembly disqualified former Sindh chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim as a member of the provincial assembly (MPA) on Thursday.
The PPP-backed move, however, could not attract the support of the lawmakers from the National People’s Party, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML)-Functional and the PML-Quaid, who stayed away from the house.
Though PML-Q’s Shaharyar Mahar attended the assembly, he left before Speaker Nisar Khuhro could put the motion to vote.
“The seat stands declared as vacant,” Khuhro told the house amid desk-thumping and shouts of “Long Live Bhutto”.
Rahim, the self-exiled PML-Likeminded leader, was elected from PS-60 (Tharparkar I), the constituency from where the PPP tends to nominate Engineer Wali Muhammad Rahimoon, whom Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani termed perfect for the candidature.
As soon as the question hour concluded, Khuhro, quoting Sub-section 1 of Clause 56 of the Rules of Procedures, informed the house that he had received certificates from the legislation, budget and accounts branches of the Assembly Secretariat that Rahim had remained absent without leave from the assembly for 40 consecutive working days from July 13, 2011 to March 21, 2012.
This 40-day period, Khuhro explained, was stretched over the last two to three sessions sans Saturdays and Sundays. “So, this house has to decide about the issue on a majority or minority vote,” he added.
This was followed by Durrani moving a motion, read out by other PPP lawmakers including Jam Mehtab Dehar, Saleem Khursheed Khokar and Nadir Magsi.
“Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Member of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh who has remained absent for forty consecutive days, his seat be declared as vacant,” read the motion.
PPP legislators Shazia Marri (Information Minister) and Rafique Engineer reminded Khuhro that there is no provision for a speech while a motion is moved in the house, as the chair gave the floor to PML-L’s Abdul Razzak Rahimoon.
“Not a good trend is being set, as previously Jam Madad Ali was disqualified and now Arbab sahab is facing the same fate,” he said and walked out of the assembly in protest.
Marri and Engineer, however, did not object when their party members Durrani, Senior Education & Literacy Minister Pir Mazharul Haq and Law Minister Ayaz Soomro delivered long speeches to justify the disqualification of Rahim, whom Durrani contemptuously called a desert crow, attributing the derogatory remarks to a past statement of the late Pir Pagara Ali Mardan Shah.
“I, subsequently, asked the person (Dr Agha Javed Pathan) who had roughed him (Rahim) up with a shoe. He said, ‘I hit him because he used to abuse our mothers and sisters in his secretariat’,” Durrani recalled.
The PPP lawmakers said Rahim was disqualified by the people – not the house – for failing to serve his voters and in the “filthy way” he had run the Chief Minister House in his reign.
“For the past four years, this house showed a unanimous graciousness to grant him leave, but the tone and language he used in his telephonic public addresses warrant that the law should take its course against him,” said Haq, adding that Rahim had pleaded his case in the courts, which also rejected his “contradictory” pleas.
Durrani said Rahim’s name should be included in the ongoing investigation of the Karsaz incident, as the then chief minister had aptly hinted at the deadly twin blasts on October 18, 2007.
“His (Rahim’s) statement in the morning that the participants of the Karsaz procession would cry in the evening prevents him from coming to Pakistan,” Advocate General Fatah Malik told the house what he said he had told the court when asked.
Malik also put a legal stamp on the disqualification move under Rule 56(1) of the assembly and Articles 64, 67 and 127 of the constitution.
After the house said “ayes” to the disqualification motion, the speaker congratulated the members for completing 100 days of the current parliamentary year.
Terming Thursday as 105th day, Khuhro recalled that the assembly had also held around 109 sittings last year.
Meanwhile, Mahar withdrew his privilege motion against the chief engineer of the Sukkur Barrage, who he said had successfully sought his pardon for his mistakes.
Also, a joint resolution tabled by Marri under Rule 211 was adopted by the house to mark March 23 as a historic day for the people of Pakistan.
The house was prorogued by the speaker for an indefinite period.
