ISLAMABAD, 10 June 2021: Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto-Zardarihas appealed to the speaker National Assembly that he shall assure the members that he will run the House and the Standing Committees in such a manner that the members can resolve the issues facing people.
Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly on Thursday, Bilawal said that legislation is very important for all of us.
He said that Pakistan is already a polarised society that we in the TV shows physically fight with each other.
"If we want to solve people's problems then the treasury benches will have to listen to the opposition's point of view. One-sided legislations will be weak. In the entire world both treasury and opposition point of views are listened to. We want a legislation with good points from the government and opposition both. Such legislations will be able to solve problems of the Pakistani people. If you do not listen to us and not allow us to speak, you will pass the bill in the Standing Committees by force and then table in the NA, [you] will be snatching our rights,"he said.
He said that the government wants to introduce electronic voting machines in the name of electoral reforms.
"We all want to give voting rights to the oversees Pakistanis and we all want to do that but this is very important bill. There could be many consequences of this bill. We have to discuss this bill in detail. The overseas living abroad do not know the problems of constituencies. They can have their own constituency and members. They should not compete a Pakistani in the constituency rather have their own constituency and compete with other Pakistanis abroad and represent overseas Pakistanis," he said.
Regarding electronic voting machines, Bilawal said that can you guarantee that India and RAW will not be able to hack our machines and change the results.
"If the government has taken measures to protect the votes then the opposition should be informed about that."
He said that if the government wanted to give KulbhushanJadhav any relief then why you gave the relief through an ordinance in the dark of night.
If the government wanted to reach a consensus on the issue it could have consulted the opposition but did not do so.
You wanted to be an ambassador of Kashmir but emerged as the counsel of Jadhav.
The government should give us time to read and discuss the issue, so that we can tell the people in the constituency that why it was essential to pass any bill and the bill to provide relief to KulbhushanJadhav.
It is the right of fishermen to give his point of view about any bill about maritime and we should take views of the people living in the coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan,the PPP chairman said.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021