ISLAMABAD - The main opposition parties might adopt a new strategy for registering their protests in the Parliament on different issues including non-issuance of production orders of the arrested members.

The opposition might plan to boycott the proceedings after staging strong protest inside the House in the upcoming National Assembly session. With other issues, the opposition might prominently take up non-issuance of production orders and NAB activities, especially arrest of opposition members.

The opposition parties are likely to attend the proceedings only to register their protest and boycott the rest of proceedings, background discussions with opposition parties’ members revealed.

The PML-N, the main opposition party, might initiate the plan and second largest opposition party PPP-P will join hands with it on this matter, they said.

The PML-N will also make efforts to engage other opposition parties including JUI-F to convince them on boycotting the proceedings of the National Assembly, said sources. Final decision to create rumpus and leave the proceedings of the House in protest are likely to be made on Monday morning before the start of National Assembly session scheduled to be held the same day at 5pm.

Set to protest non-issuance of production orders of arrested MPs

The opposition parties PML-N and PPP-P have strongly registered their protest in the National Assembly for not giving permission to the arrested members of their parties to attend the session.

The opposition also recently threatened the government and the speaker National Assembly to move to court, if the ‘right of attending the proceedings’ was not given to the arrested members. PML-N’s parliamentary party leader Khwaja Asif had threatened to register case in the court and received a tit-for-tat response from government.

Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser also made attempt to ensure the opposition that he was looking into the matter according to the rules and regulations and had issued maximum number of production orders as compared to the rest of speakers of the National Assembly in the past. Currently, six members (MNAs) from different opposition parties are behind the bars in different cases. PPP-P’s Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, PML-N senior members Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Rana Sana Ullah, Saad Rafique, two members from North Waziristan Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir have been arrested on various charges.

The opposition also wants to raise the matter of appointment of two members of Election Commission from small provinces, which according to them were appointed against the rules. They argued, in media talks, that the President had no authority to appoint any member by issuing an ordinance.

The case of appointment of two members was pending for last six months, so the President took initiative to appoint two members. However, the Chief Election Commissioner has recently refused to take oath of these members.

Political wizards viewed that the opposition parties might choose to boycott proceedings of the National Assembly only during the current session.