The Senate met for its first working day on Wednesday evening almost two hours behind schedule but when it finally did meet the ambience in the House was too tranquil to be real.
After Ishaq Dar had taken the oath - he could not be sworn in on Sunday, as he was not in Pakistan-Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro took up the agenda with question hour being the first item. Members exhibited extraordinary composure and let the House take up and finish all the listed questions. Even the points of order that followed were asked politely and if any concerned minister did volunteer to respond the opposition members heard him with due deference. One would wonder why this change of heart; one could find the answer to this in the intense parleys that preceded the regular proceedings.
The inaugural day of the new Senate on Sunday was really stormy. As the entire country watched on the mini screen the opposition raised huge rumpus, and at one point an opposition member almost came close to a physical scuffle with the Chairman. Both sides blamed each other for the rumpus. But as their leaders met first separately and then together they decided to let bygones be bygones. Not a word was mentioned on the floor as to what transpired in the joint meeting and who apologised to whom.
The question hour was absolutely smooth-sailing except towards the end when Ilyas Bilour questioned the credibility of the defence ministry's admission that the land in village Mehmandi, near Kohat, was being acquired dirt cheap at Rs 860 per kanal. You cannot have land at this rate even in a graveyard, the ANP Senator said, adding the whole deal is suspect and should be referred to the defence committee of the House. The Chair obliged him, but in another case where the members strongly objected to large-scale retrenchment of the lower staff of the Habib Bank, the Chairman refused arguing the action under question was taken by a private sector organisation.
The proceedings would have continued to be dull and lacklustre till when Sadia Abbasi asked whether the ministers who have been re-elected to the Senate need to be given fresh oath. State minister for law Shahid Bhinder was of the view that though Constitutionally there is "ambiguity" about it the practice however suggests that the re-elected ministers need not take fresh oath.
But the opposition contested this perception, with Farooq Naik holding the opinion that fresh oath is warranted and Ilyas Bilour informed the House that fresh oath is required after every three years.
If the new oath was not required as the minister said Raza Rabbani would still be leader of opposition in the Senate. Rabbani's observation was that on March 11 he ceased to be the leader of the opposition because he ceased to be the member "so analogously a minister also needed to take the oath of his office". The chair saw the complexity in the matter and promised to look into it.
Another significant development was unanimous adoption of a resolution moved by Professor Khurshid Ahmad and others that requests the government to notify some facilities like free-access to the parliament building, use of VIP lounges at the airports and non-relapse of their development funds and their reception by Pakistan diplomatic missions. On another point of order Anwer Baig wanted to know when would President Musharraf address the joint session of Parliament.
The House will now meet on Thursday afternoon.