ISLAMABAD - The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has finalized a strategy to defeat opposition parties’ bill in the National Assembly seeking to place a bar on a disqualified person to hold the party office. The opposition parties seemed united to get the bill through from the Lower House of the Parliament after Senate.
Sources in the PML-N said that central party leaders were tasked to ensure the maximum presence of the ruling party MPs in the house today (Tuesday) to defeat the opposition parties’ bill, which would be tabled as a private member bill.
The sources further said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as talked to both National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Federal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sheikh Aftab and discussed various options to tackle the issue in the National Assembly.
PML-N MNA from Faisalabad Mian Manan while talking to the media on Monday said that the people would see that the whole party was united and all the party MNAs would be present in the Lower House to defeat the opposition parties bill.
He dispelled the impression of cracks in the ruling party adding that the whole party stood united under the leadership of Sharif.
Sources in the PML-N said that some senior party leaders and federal cabinet members including Khawaja Saad Rafiq were busy contacting party MPs to ensure their attendance in Tuesday’s session. In case, the opposition parties table the bill the same could be voted out pushing the matter to finally go to the joint sitting of the Parliament as Senate of Pakistan had already passed the bill, once again placing a restriction on a disqualified person to hold any party office.
The parliamentary parties’ meeting of both opposition and treasury parties was scheduled ahead of the session wherein both sides would devise their strategies to deal with the matter.
Following Sharif’s disqualification by the apex court, the ruling party managed to get a piece of legislation passed from the Parliament paving the way for a disqualified person to hold the party portfolio.
A day after the passage of the controversial legislation from Upper House of the Parliament, where opposition parties are having a majority, Sharif was once again installed as party president at a general council meeting of the party held in Islamabad earlier.
Previously to avoid the embarrassment of defeat on a private members day in the National Assembly when the ruling party was not having the requisite numbers in the house to defeat it, the National Assembly speaker abruptly prorogued the session scheduled to remain in session for another week or so.
There were also reports that a group of over 60 ruling party MPs who were not comfortable with the ruling party policies or were annoyed with the party’s indifference toward them, they would not vote for the government.
But a senior PML-N leader, who is also part of the federal cabinet, rubbished the impression of any differences within the ruling party and confidently said that things would be clear in Tuesday’s session when all the party leaders, as well as the coalition partners, would vote in favour of the government.
Sources said that former premier Sharif himself talked to heads of coalition parties and all of them including JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, PkMAP chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai and NP leader Mir Hasil Khan Bezinjo have assured complete support to the ruling PML-N both inside and outside the Parliament.
Constitutional experts said that in case the opposition parties were defeated in the National Assembly, the mover of the bill could take the bill to the joint sitting for a final decision, otherwise, it would turn dormant.
And in case the government faces defeat on the bill in National Assembly, the chances of which in the given circumstances seemed grim, then the amendment in the earlier legislation would be enacted blocking the disqualified person to hold the party office.
