For being the son of Ahmad Faraz, an iconic poet of rebellion and romance, Senator Shibli Faraz had been savoring universal respect and admiration from the press gallery.

After the elections of 2018, however, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf appointed him as Leader of the House in the Senate. Fiercely defending the government in that capacity, he often invents excuses that make you squirm. With typical thick skin of a usual politician he fails to even notice your pain and shame.

The number strong opposition in the Senate felt insufferably cheated Tuesday afternoon. On the last sitting of the upper house of parliament, the PTI government surprised it by tabling not one but four Ordinances.

The attempt surely smacked of a deliberate intent to short circuiting the route, clearly prescribed for legislation in parliamentary form of government. Senator Sherry Rehman of the PPP had to protest. And then Raza Rabbani took the floor.

Being a veteran of parliamentary practices, Raza Rabbani delivered a comprehensive speech. It drummed the point that feeling constrained for the lack of majority in the Senate, the PTI was fast developing the habit of ruling through Ordinances.

President Arif Alvi also keeps on signing on the government-prepared instruments of law. Doing this, he disregards the fact that some Ordinances, approved by him, clearly violated the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

Raza Rabbani’s forceful arguments motivated Siraj-ul-Haq, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader, to take the floor. He was almost explicit to suggest that Ordinances were being issued in haste by the PTI government, primarily to please business tycoons, known for personal connections with some of its powerful ministers.

Shibli Faraz sounded too rude after taking the floor. He did not bother to address the pertinent points raised by Raza Rabbani and Siraj-ul-Haq.

Faraz also made no attempt to scuttle allegations that the PTI government was bulldozing Ordinances to facilitate some business cartels. With a straight face, he rather tried hard to pass the blame on number strong opposition in the Senate.

To keep it short and simple, Shibli Faraz referred to the arrest of some top leaders of the opposition parties. The government, he stressed, was not responsible for these arrests. NAB had to nab them for serious charges of corruption.

Yet, the opposition is not willing to fathom the reality. Feeling angry and bitter about the arrest of its leaders, it  wants to make it difficult for the government when it comes to preparing and passing new laws. “In ultimate public interest,” Shibli Faraz went on, “the government has to bring in new laws through Ordinances.”

The lame point scoring by Leader of the House provoked the Opposition Leader, Raja Zafarul Haq. He announced walking out of the House in protest. The government did not have numbers to establish quorum on its own and the Senate session was prorogued for a long recess.

The simple-sounding speech of Shibli Faraz clearly conveyed, however, that the PTI government had begun to feel seriously handicapped due to the brute majority that the opposition relished in the Senate.

It was time to manage comfort by encouraging floor crossing. To prevent the shame of “ruling through ordinances,” the government surely needs “forward blocs” surfacing from within the opposition parties.

Only some weeks ago, 64 senators from the opposition benches stood in the House to announce their intent of removing Sadiq Sanjrani from the office of Chairman Senate. During the secret balloting for the motion of no confidence, however, 15 of them switched sides. The opposition parties could yet not identify the last minute turncoats.

The covert support of 15 opposition senators still not ensures smooth legislation for the government. On its own, it could only show the support of 32 and you have to have at least 55 senators with you to pass a law from the upper house of parliament.

The said number could not be achieved without building the focused and relentless pressure to extract “forward blocs” from within the main opposition parties. One is not sure how the government intends to go about it.

No doubt, the induction of 18th Amendment made it extremely difficult for budding turncoats to switch loyalties for the comfort of a ruling party. Many can still dare to come out into the open, however, while pretending to be helping the government in passing laws, ostensibly drafted for people’s welfare.

The government can’t rely on case-to-case “voting by conscience,” though. That will require ceaseless pampering of “independent legislators” to get each law passed from the Senate. Only the surfacing of forward blocs from within the major opposition parties ensures consistent smooth sailing for the government, when it comes to legislate.

Rumors are rife in Islamabad that a big number of would be turncoats is almost ready to now ditch the Zardari-led PPP from within the Sindh Assembly.

They are covertly ganging up to eventually surface as a group, expressing absolute loyalty to the ideas promoted by “Benazir Bhutto Shaheed.” After the possible arrest of Murad Ali Shah by NAB, this group can certainly help installing a Chief Minister in Sindh who does not need to seek “day to day guidance” from Asif Ali Zardari.

Even if perfectly managed, the surfacing of “Benazir Shaheed Group” from the PPP does not help the government for smooth legislation in the Senate. An overwhelming majority of PPP nominated Senators is battle-heartened. They are almost addicted to resist.

A huge chunk of “pragmatic and responsible” types from the PML-N is desperately required, therefore, to switch sides and clearly tell the world that they could no more associate themselves with “suicidal politics,” presumably pursued by Nawaz Sharif and his daughter.

At least two established mavens of parliamentary business, currently working for the Imran government with obsessive devotion, separately told me that “not less than 20 senators” from the PML-N were now willing to come out into the open.

They also told me with utter confidence that the PTI government would summon the next session of the National Assembly or the Senate, only after surfacing of the forward bloc from within the PML-N. And “the target” has to be achieved, “maximum by the third week of September, 2019.” One would prefer to watch and wait.