Government defends renaming of NWFP

The government on Friday defended renaming of the NWFP as Pukhtunkhwah saying that the provincial assembly has adopted unanimous resolutions to rename the province. The government defended its move after the MNA, Pakistan Muslim League -N (PML-N), Captain Muhammad Safdar (Retired) on a point of order lodged a protest in the NA over renaming of NWFP as 'Pukhtunkhwah' sought ruling from the to bar the legislators from doing this 'constitutional' violation in future.
Some remarks of the PML-N MNA, which were expunged by the chair, resulted in exchange of hot words between legislators from Awami National Party (ANP) and PML-N. The MNAs of the Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) also staged a walkout due to the alleged personal attack by the PML-N member on the MQM Deputy Parliamentary, leader, Haider Abbas Rizvi.
The yelling of some parliamentarians rocked the NA proceedings, which forced the Chairman of the session, Deputy Speaker, Faisal Karim Kundi to abruptly prorogue the house. Kundi read out the prorogation order amid exchange of harsh words as most of the lawmakers from ANP and PML-N were on their legs.
Minister for inter-provincial co-ordination, Raza Rabbani defended the move by saying that the NWFP assembly passed unanimous resolutions seeking the renaming of the province. 'Not even a single vote was cast against the resolution passed by the provincial assembly,' said Rabbani.
He explained, it was the duty of the previous governments to respect those resolutions because under the Constitution, the federal government cannot reject a unanimous resolution passed by the legislature of any federating unit. Muhammad Safdar raised this issue on a point of order. He said that constitutional name of the province is the NWFP. He objected to the speeches of Raza Rabbani and Haider Abbas Rizvi in which they mentioned Pukhtunkhwah as the name of the NWFP.
'This is an act of constitutional violation,' Safdar said as he demanded from the chair to give a ruling for stopping this practice in future. However, the chair remained silent after Raza Rabbani defended the move. In heated argument, Rizvi said that the Constitution had named the province as 'North West Frontier Province (NWFP)'.
The Constitution does not have the province's name as 'Sarhad', he said. 'But generally the NWFP is always called as Sarhad. Captain Safdar never objected to this, said the MQM Deputy Parliamentary leader. He said he did not know as what is the logic of the Captain Safdar's objection on Pukhtunkhwah.
'I don't know why he is objecting on Pukhtun or khwah,' he added. The MNA Pervaiz Khan of the ANP questioned the locus standi of captain Safdar to raise this issue. Some of Pervaiz Khan's remarks were expunged from the record, when the ANP MNA launched a direct verbal attack on Nawaz Sharif.