The claim made by federal Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Raza Rabbani in the National Assembly on November 21, 2008 that NWFP Assembly had twice passed unanimous resolutions in favour of renaming the NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa is totally baseless and a negation of facts. In fact the NWFP Assembly never passed any unanimous resolution in favour of Pakhtunkhwa. The resolution for renaming of NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa was moved in the provincial assembly for the first time on November 29, 1990 and was defeated. There were 48 (58%) votes against the resolution, 28 (34%) in favour while 7 members (8%) abstained. Another resolution was moved for the second time and passed by the NWFP Assembly on November 13, 1997 but with a thin majority and in highly disputed proceedings. The house had 83 members. A total of 44 members voted in favour of Pukhtunkhwa, representing 53% yes vote; while 37 members (45% of the total strength of the assembly) from the PML-N and allies stayed away by exercising their right of abstention while two MPAs opposed the resolution. The then NWFP Assembly speaker Hidayatullah Chamkani of the ANP violated the rules by counting only the yes and no votes. He even included abstentions - 37 MPAs - in the yes votes. A resolution supported by only 53% elected legislators of the province in no way can be termed a unanimous one. -IRFAN KHAN, Peshawar, via e-mail, November 23.