This is apropos a Business Recorder news item “Senate session requisitioned” carried by the newspaper yesterday. According to it, “just two days after the promulgation of the presidential ordinance on open ballot system in Senate polls, the opposition senators on Monday moved a requisition in Senate Secretariat to summon Senate session to discuss ’the unprecedented and controversial presidential ordinance promulgated with mala fides intent’”.

The opposition appears to have been caught off guard by the promulgation of this ordinance by the President of Pakistan. The rumpus caused by opposition legislators in the National Assembly successfully forced the Treasury benches to stage a walkout from the house – an unprecedented step. Little did the opposition know that the government had made a shrewd move by issuing an ordinance ahead of Supreme Court’s opinion or ruling on the Presidential reference on the mode of ballot for Senate election.

SHAHNAWAZ AKHTAR (KARACHI)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021