ISLAMABAD: The first meeting of the Senate, Tuesday, after the passage of the controversial 26th Constitutional Amendment, earlier on Sunday, was marked with an apparent disinterest of the senators, as the Upper House of the Parliament was adjourned shortly after it was summoned due to the lack of quorum.

Irfan Siddiqui from Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) presided over the session. He adjourned it till Friday after quorum was pointed out by Ahmed Khan from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F).

No one from the Senate’s senior leadership; Chairman Senate Yousaf Raza Gilani, Deputy Chairman Syedaal Khan, Leader of the House Ishaq Dar, Opposition Leader Shibli Faraz and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Azam Tarar was present in the House.

In a related development, Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) chief Akhtar Mengal claimed that Muhammad Qasim Roonjho, one of the two senators from BNP-M, who, he said, voted for the constitutional amendment against the party policy, tendered his resignation from Senate. Mengal alleged that Roonjho and another BNP-M Senator Naseema Ehsan were abducted and forced to vote for the amendment.

“He (Qasim) wanted to tell the Senate today what happened to him before the government broke the quorum and adjourned the Senate session out of shame,” he told the journalists at the Parliament House.

Mengal said he directed the two senators to quit Senate membership. However, unlike Roonjho, Ehsan was yet to tender her resignation.

Last week, most of the opposition lawmakers, those of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in particular, did not attend the Senate proceedings ahead of the presentation of the 26th Constitutional Amendment amidst the reports that the opposition senators had gone into hiding to avoid being nabbed by sleuths of intelligence agencies who were allegedly abducting and forcing the opposition lawmakers to vote for the controversial amendment. The opposition senators who went reportedly underground included Faraz, the Opposition Leader.

Only four opposition senators; Ali Zafar, Hamid Khan and Aon Abbas Buppi from PTI and Raja Nasir Abbas from Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) were present in Senate when the amendment was passed Sunday night. They strongly opposed the constitutional amendment that apparently clips the key powers of the superior judiciary.

As many as 70 senators had attended the Senate session on Sunday including the chairman Senate who did not participate in the voting as the relevant law does not allow the chairman to take part in voting on a constitutional amendment except if there is a tie vote between the government and the opposition.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024