KARACHI - After accepting the resignations of ministers and advisors on Tuesday, Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro on Tuesday notified MQM’s parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed as leader of the opposition in Sindh Assembly.
After the passage of over two weeks, Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad has finally accepted their resignations. However, the resignations of the advisor to the chief minister were accepted by the CM in the evening the same day.
After parting ways with the PPP government on February 16, the MQM ministers and advisors, on February 17, had submitted their resignations to the governor.
The ministers of MQM, including MQM’s parliamentary leader in provincial assembly Syed Sardar Ahmed, Shoaib Bukhari, Adil Siddiqui, Rauf Siddiqui, Dr Sagheer Ahmed, Khawaja Izharul Hassan, Faisal Sabzwari, Shaikh Muhammad Afzal, Khalid Bin Wilayat, Zubair Ahmed Khan, Abdul Haseeb, Muhammad Raza Haroon and others were part of the Sindh Cabinet.
After returning from abroad, Ebad in his meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari in Lahore finalised the issues on caretaker setup including paving way for MQM to sit on the opposition benches.
Meanwhile just after accepting the resignations of ministers, the MQM has withdrawn its earlier application in which Amir Moin Pirzada was nominated as a leader of the opposition.
Led by Dr Sagheer Ahmed and Faisal Sabzwari, the MQM MPAs on Tuesday reached Sindh Assembly and submitted another application to Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, in which their parliamentary leader Sardar Ahmed has been nominated as leader of the opposition.
With the signature of 50 MPAs, the MQM in their application requested the Speaker to notify the Sardar as leader of the opposition as soon as resignations of MQM’s ministers have been accepted by the governor.
Khuhro while talking to the media persons categorically said that the MQM’s nominee Sardar Ahmed had support of majority MPAs so he would be notified as leader of the opposition soon.
The Speaker further said that acceptance of resignations of the MQM ministers had created easiness for him to issue the notification of the leader of opposition from MQM.
To a question, he said that PML-F’s nominee Nusrat Sehar Abbasi has support of only seven members so she couldn’t be appointed as the leader of opposition in Sindh Assembly.
Later, in the evening, the Speaker has notified the MQM’s Syed Sardar Ahmed as leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly.
The Sindh Assembly session would resume today on Wednesday as provincial legislature will have opposition leader after long period of two years.
It is general perception that MQM parted ways with the government to sit on opposition benches under an agreement with the ruling PPP to form a caretaker setup with mutual understanding between two parties, with fulfilled today with notification of leader of opposition issued by Speaker.
As sources in the PPP government confirmed that Interior Minister Rehman Malik during his meeting with the MQM leadership in London had conveyed important messages of President Asif Ali Zardari about the caretaker setup.
Meanwhile, the PML-F while terming the MQM as fake opposition in the Sindh Assembly said that PPP and MQM through an agreement had planned to snatch the right of becoming opposition leader from the PML-F.
A leader of the PML-F said that his party chief Pir Pagara has already said that the party would approach the Sindh High Court against the appointing the leader of opposition from the MQM just two weeks before the dissolution of the Assemblies.