ISLAMABAD   -  Contrary to the swift formation of Parliamentary Committee on Election Probe, its members so far have failed to devise terms of reference (ToRs) for the body and would be meeting again today to break the impasse on the issue.

The Parliamentary Committee to probe the alleged rigging in 2018 elections was formed on the pressing demand of opposition parties and in its maiden session after the elections of the chairman of the committee on November 9 a technical committee with equal number of members from government and opposition parties was formed to devise the terms of reference (ToRs) for the committee within two weeks time but despite having couple of sittings the opposition and treasury members of the committee could not come up with consensus ToRs.

Members of the committee belonging to opposition parties accused the treasury members of creating hiccups and being non-serious on the issue while the ruling alliance members of the committee said that proposals coming from opposition side are vague and impracticable and in sheer contradiction of some articles of the constitution.

In the first meeting of the technical committee, which was held under its chairman Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood, the members failed to evolve consensus on the ToRs and it was decided that both government and opposition members would bring their proposed ToRs in black and white and then the committee after deliberations on the same would evolve a set of consensus ToRs for the Parliamentary Committee to probe the alleged election rigging.

The technical committee meeting was last summoned on November 28 but due to some unknown reasons the meeting could not take place despite the fact that some members from opposition parties including Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo and Rana Sanullah had come to attend the meeting.

Opposition members of the committee informed that they have given the written ToRs to the chairman of the technical committee Shafqat Mahmood but the treasury members of the committee have yet to furnish the same.

They alleged that treasury members of the committee were creating hurdles in the way of evolving consensus on ToRs and raising unreasonable objections on the ToRs proposed by the opposition members.

Rana Sanaullah said that actually the government was not taking the matter seriously and they wanted to delay it as long as possible. He said that they would be writing to Federal Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee Elections 2018, to look into the matter as the members of government in the technical committee are not taking things seriously.

Parliamentary sources said that the third meeting of technical committee would deliberate on the proposed ToRs presented by the opposition side while the government members may present their ToRs in the meeting as well.

These sources hoped that after going through the ToRs from both the sides the members would try to evolve consensus and in case of objections on the ToRs, which mainly coming from the government side the chair could seek the legal advice from the Ministry of Law, as in the previous meeting some members from government side had raised objections on the ToRs proposed by the opposition members and said that these were repugnant to some articles of the constitution, particularly Article 225 which mainly deals with matters pertaining to alleged rigging and irregularities in the conduct of elections.