The opposition in the Senate on Wednesday faced embarrassment when it failed to ensure quorum for a session it had requisitioned, with the presiding office proroguing the House as the required one-fourth members were not present despite the bells having been rung for five minutes.
PPP Senator Syedda Iqbal had pointed out in the very beginning that the proceedings of the House could not be held due to incomplete quorum. JI Senator Professor Ibrahim said a member of the treasury benches was pointing out incomplete quorum and it suggested the failure of the government.
Leader of the House in the Senate Nayyar Bukhari, however, replied that the session had been called on the request of the opposition members and maintaining the quorum was the responsibility of the opposition. Senator Afrasiab Khattak, who was presiding over the proceedings in the absence of chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate, ordered to ring the bells and after a few minutes, the House again started its proceedings. Raising a point of order, Tahir Mashhadi said that the government should make efforts to reinstate some sacked journalists of Multan. Nayyar Bukhari, speaking on another point of order, said the questions of the current session should be postponed to the next session. However, the proceedings were suspended in the owing to Maghrib prayers and PML-Q’s Simeen Saddiqi again pointed out an incomplete quorum after the prayer interval. The bells were rung again, but the House did not meet the quorum. The session was, therefore, prorogued. This was not a regular session of the Upper House and it had been requisitioned by the opposition members to debate the NATO strike and memo issues. The Upper House is scheduled to hold its regular session from December 9.
Only 16 members of the Upper House were present in the House when the quorum was pointed out by PPP Senator Syedda Iqbal and 23, six from the government and 17 from the opposition, were present when Simeen Saddiqi pointed out the quorum later. Later, PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar told reporters that members of the treasury were held back from proceedings of the Upper House and an incomplete quorum was pointed out deliberately by the government as part of its scheme to avoid debate on NATO airstrike and the “memogate” issue.
“It was decided in the advisory committee that no one would point out quorum in the Senate, but pointing out incomplete quorum and holding most of its members back from participating in the proceedings of the Upper House by the government is part of its scheme to sabotage the debate on NATO airstrike and revelations of US citizen Mansoor Ijaz, as both the issues could have been embarrassing for the government,” Dar said, adding that his party would submit an adjournment motion against the move.
Dar said the debate on memo issue and NATO airstrike engender a number of questions about the performance of the government and suggested its utter failure in resolving national issues. Moreover, Senator Mushahidullah said the government told many of its members to leave when the House was about to meet the quorum.
