Sindh Assembly speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah has left Karachi on Sunday to attend the post-election seminar in Maldives. He would return on November 20, a notification of the Sindh government said on Monday.
In his absence, deputy speaker Rahila Tiwana will officiate as speaker. The governor has convened session of the Sindh Assembly on November 18 which would be chaired by Tiwana till Shah returns from Maldives.
To attend the coming session, opposition members are flexing their muscles to bring into focus earthquake relief operations that are slow and without any tangible results as the winter is approaching fast and a large number of people still on hilltops have not come down to safer places.
Opposition members have said the government has not taken steps to motivate the marooned people to leave their dwellings and temporarily come down to safer place. These people are without proper food supplies and warm clothes to keep off the onslaught of cold winds.
They said inadequate shelter, clothes, medicines and money was likely to hit them hard and many people would die before any humanitarian help reached them.
Top leaders of the opposition talking to Business Recorder said they did not want to be quoted as they wanted the coming session to complete its duration in a peaceful manner but they would point out the rift between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Jamaat-i-Islami that still continued in Muzaffarabd area.
They said that the two parties were politicising the earthquake and indulging in uncalled far politics.
At a time, they said, when the need was to shun politics and help the affected people these two political parties were involved in petty politics. They said it was the responsibility of the government to tame their coalition partners and ask them to help all the people willing to work in affected areas.
Leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro and MPA Shazia Marri are of the opinion that NGOs were working in much more better manner than government agencies which are otherwise fully equipped to deal with calamities arising out of heavy fire, floods and earthquake. They are of the opinion that repeated assertions of the army spokesperson that armed forces were fully equipped to deal with any emergency, the performance still remains questionable.
They said the coming session would be peaceful provided the treasury benches treated opposition as equal partners in the affairs of the assembly. They said the opposition was answerable to its electorates and the treasury let it play its due role. In case otherwise, there would be protests and walkouts during sessions which would mar proceedings. They said the treasury benches should try to come in time so that sessions could begin in time.