ISLAMABAD  -   The PTI government is yet to fulfil constitutional obligation regarding conclusion of debate on the president’s address to the joint session of parliament even after passing almost a parliamentary year.

The government has only a month time to initiate and conclude the debate on President Arif Alvi’s address to the joint sitting.

The important debate, over the performance and roadmap for the government, is yet to be initiated on the first presidential address to the current national assembly. The government side has only been mentioning agenda of the sessions, but failed to conduct the debate.

When contacted, PML-N’s senior MNA Ahsan Iqbal said the mandatory debate on presidential address has even not been initiated even after passing almost a year.

“Two debates including debate on budget and presidential address are mandatory to be conducted in the parliament,” the opposition member said mentioning that the government has conducted debate only on budget 2019-20 but is ignoring the debate on the presidential address.

“This is very strange that the governments is focusing only on verbal brawls in the parliament and ignoring important agendas,” he commented. He suggested the government ‘not to hang’ this mandatory agenda of the national assembly and conduct debate on it.

The opposition party member said that the government should have completed this important mandatory agenda much earlier. Debates on economy, agriculture, law and order and other are also not properly conducted in the parliament in PTI’s government era, he claimed.

The joint opposition parties and Speaker National assembly Asad Qaiser, in previous session of the national assembly had agreed to conduct debate on important national matters but still it was not planned.