A key constitutional amendment bill to increase the number of seats of erstwhile Federally Admin-istered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Asse-mbly and National Assembly is unlikely to be presented in the ongoing Senate session, it is learnt. On May 13, the National Assembly unanimously passed the 26th Amendment Bill moved by Mohsin Dawar. The bill provides for increasing the seats of erstwhile FATA in National Assembly from six to nine and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly from 16 to 20. The bill is yet to be passed by the Senate and then by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly before it is signed into law by the President of Pakistan. In the ongoing budget session in the Senate, some senators from treasury benches including independent senators from erstwhile FATA, Aurangzeb Khan and Ayub Afridi have demanded that the 26th Constitutional Amendment Bill be presented and immediately passed by the upper House of the Parliament. If passed by the Senate, the bill would then have to be passed by the KP Assembly and signed by the President of Pakistan prior it becomes the law.
The chances that the bill would be presented in the Senate during ongoing session appear very low since the bill's mover Mohsin Dawar is currently in the custody of security agencies for allegedly attacking a security picket in North Waziristan a few weeks back.
Requesting anonymity, a well-placed senator in the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) told Business Recorder that even if the bill is presented and passed by the Senate and subsequently by the KP Assembly, it would be very difficult to have elections on the newly created 20 seats of KP Assembly from erstwhile FATA within the constitutional time limit.
Explaining the reason, he said the 25th Amendment passed by the Parliament and KP Assembly in May last year allowed FATA's merger into KP provided that the FATA merger process be completed within one year of the general elections. The Amendment allowed reduction of erstwhile FATA seats in NA from 12 to six seats (to be applicable from next general elections) and creation of 16 seats of erstwhile FATA in KP Assembly (within one year of general elections).
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