ISLAMABAD: In a move seemingly aims to appease the aggrieved Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), newly appointed Leader of the Opposition in Senate Yousaf Raza Gilani Wednesday forwarded the nominations of PML-N’s Azam Nazeer Tarar as well as Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP’s) Farook Naek to Senate Secretariat for their membership in the Parliamentary Committee on the Appointment of Judges (of superior judiciary).

Tarar, a newly elected senator, was in run for the slot of Senate opposition leader amidst escalated hostility between both the major opposition parties for the coveted position that finally went to Gilani.

Senior PML-N leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Business Recorder earlier on Tuesday that his party offered PPP to move a no-confidence motion against Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani.

“It is on record that 57 senators in writing at the time of nomination of the opposition leader Yousaf Raza Gilani admitted that they were opposition members. The members sitting on government benches cannot be considered as the opposition members…… We offer PPP to capture seat of the Senate chairman and reverse the stolen elections by bringing a no-confidence move against the chairman,” he said.

He said that out of those independent senators who supported Gilani for Senate opposition leader slot, three have given in writing that they were now part of Balochistan Awami Party (BAP).

“PML-N stands by those who are struggling against the government through the forum of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and it was decided at the PDM huddles that opposition leader would belong to PML-N,” he said.

Senior PPP leader and former chairman Senate Nayyar Hussain Bukhari denied that Gilani got the support of any BAP senator for the slot of leader of the opposition in Senate.

“PPP’s 21 senators, a group of four independent senators led by Dilawar Khan, two Awami National Party (ANP) senators, two independent senators from erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and one Jamat-e-Islami (JI) senator—in total they are 30 senators who supported Gilani’s candidature for opposition leader slot. No one was from BAP,” he said.

“Still, we are facing accusations that PPP is a ‘Sarkari’ (government sponsored) opposition. Such allegations are detrimental to PDM’s unity,” he said.

“PPP is single largest opposition party in Senate so it deserves the slot of opposition leader just like PML-N is single largest opposition party in National Assembly where opposition leader slot and chairmanship of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) belong to it,” he said.

Constitutionally, the Parliamentary Committee on the Appointment of Judges consists of eight members with equal membership from the treasury and opposition benches as well as of two houses i.e. National Assembly and Senate. The nomination of the members from the treasury benches is made by the leader of the house and from opposition benches by the leader of the opposition. When the National Assembly is dissolved, the total membership of the parliamentary panel consists of the members from the Senate only.

The parliamentary panel is being reconstituted due to the arrival of 49 new senators in the upper house of the Parliament following 3rd March elections.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021