ISLAMABAD: The opposition in the new Senate, Thursday, demanded of Chairman Senate Yousaf Raza Gilani to issue the production order of incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Ejaz Chaudhary for allowing him to attend the ongoing Senate session.
“We hope that the chairman Senate would consider this matter forthwith and issue the production order of Ejaz Chaudhary,” stated Opposition Leader Shibli Faraz, on the floor of the house in its maiden sitting.
He demanded that former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, who he said, have been jailed in false and politically motivated cases, be released immediately.
“At the moment 99 percent of the PTI leaders and workers are languishing in different jails; they should be freed too,” he demanded.
Faraz took on the former caretaker government for its failure to hold the general elections within 90-day constitutionally-stipulated time period after the dissolution of the respective governments.
“And when the general elections were announced, our party was deprived of its electoral symbol. Our people contested elections on ridiculous electoral symbols like brinjals, pumpkins and tomatoes, and defeated them,” deplored the opposition leader.
On the incomplete formation of Senate following the failure of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold elections on 11 seats of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Faraz said, the conduct of Senate elections with incomplete house is a serious violation of the Constitution.
“It’s a real shame that members from KP Assembly are not here in this house today,” the senator lamented.
The chairman Senate said the opposition leader raised some “very valid points” in his speech. “We will certainly consider them—there were no interruptions when the opposition leader was speaking—now the opposition should not complain of not being heard on the floor of the house,” he stated.
Former caretaker prime minister Anwar ul Haq Kakar said the extension in the tenure of his former caretaker government “was not our choice but a compulsion—there was no other option.”
All the stakeholders agreed that constitutional requirements like population census and constituencies’ delimitation be fulfilled before general elections, and agreed on holding the general elections on February 8, he said.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024