PA adopts LG bill despite opposition’s walkout

The Punjab Assembly (PA) on Wednesday adopted the Punjab Local Government (LG) Bill 2013 with a clear majority amid the opposition’s walk-out from the house over holding the LG polls on a non-party basis.
Under the amended LG bill, the local government elections in the province would be held on a non-party basis. Treasury lawmaker Chaudhary Tahir Ahmed Sindhu presented 13 amendments in the bill which were rejected by the speaker. The chair also rejected the other amendments proposed by the opposition.
Earlier, the PA turned into a fish market over issues including drone attacks and the LG bill after a delay from the treasury benches to adopt a condemnation resolution against drone attacks in the tribal areas.
Twice, the combined opposition staged walkouts for not being permitted to present the drone attacks condemnation resolution and for the government’s mulish stance over holding the LG elections on a non-party basis.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s Mian Aslam Iqbal had already submitted a resolution in the assembly to protest against the indiscriminate drone attacks in the country’s tribal belt. On Tuesday, the speaker pended the resolution till Wednesday on the assertion of the treasury benches.
On Wednesday, when Iqbal insisted on voting over his pended resolution, the speaker accepted the treasury’s stance and pended the resolution for another day (till Thursday).
Iqbal was of the opinion that submitting this resolution was their constitutional right and insisted on holding voting on the resolution. He added that he did not want to amend even a single word of his resolution.
Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told the house that the opposition leader had agreed to bring amendments into the resolution. Sana said that unanimity among all the members was imperative to get the resolution passed. He said that the federal government’s efforts on global platforms with respect to drone attacks needed to be mentioned in the draft. He said that the resolution should be presented before the house today (Thursday) after the inclusion of federal government’s efforts over the issue.
Iqbal instituted on holding voting on the day (Wednesday) and that was enough to initiate uproar amongst the PA’s treasury and opposition benches.
PA Speaker Rana Muhammed Iqbal put off resolution against drone attacks till Thursday and allowed the treasury to make imminent amendments in it before its passage from the House.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, Iqbal proved his loyalty to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and played an evidently partial role in the PA and bulldozed all the oppositional efforts to get the steering wheel of the assembly’s proceedings. He turned the situation in favour of the treasury benches whenever he observed the government benches’ in a weak position.
While addressing the house, Opposition Leader Mian Mehmoodur Rashid said that the government did not contact him for any amendments to the resolution.
The speaker gave a ruling of pending the resolution for another day and said that the government would have to present an amendment in the resolution on Thursday.
Upon this the opposition staged a token walkout from the PA. Later, on the direction of the speaker, Provincial Minister Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, Col Shuja Khanzada and Nadeem Kamran successfully brought back the members of the opposition.
Then the house started a general discussion on LG bill. Rashid said that the government did not contact the opposition for amendments to the resolution. Over the draft of the bill he said that it was astonishing that all other provinces were holding the LG polls on a party basis but the Punjab government was insisting on non-party based LG elections.
Wednesday’s session started with a delay of about one hour. The question hour was about the Food, Zakat and Usher departments. Punjab Zakat and Usher Minister Nadeem Kamran and Food Minister Bilal yasin answered the legislators queries regarding their departments, respectively.
The house was adjourned till 10am on Thursday.