ISLAMABAD - The Senate on Tuesday met for few minutes due to the lack of quorum amid allegations of BNP-M chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal that the house was adjourned to stop his party’s defected lawmaker from speaking on the floor regarding the “worst” conditions under which he was forced to vote for the controversial 26th Amendment.
The accusations from Baloch nationalist leader and member of the National Assembly Mengal came a day after the upper house of the parliament passed the amendment bill with two thirds-majority including votes of two BNP-M senators who acted against the party directions. Their names are Muhammad Qasim Roonjho and Naseema Ehsan.
Earlier this month, Mengal had claimed that Balochistan National Party- Mengal’s (BNP-M) both senators were missing and were being intimidated to vote for the bill.
At the outset of the Senate sitting with presiding officer Senator Irfan Siddiqui in the chair, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Saleem Mandviwalla pointed out that no minister was present in the house to answer questions during the questions hour session. He called on the chair to adjourn the house for a few minutes to ensure that ministers get to the house.
On this, the chair adjourned the house for 20 minutes. After the sitting resumed its business, the house was almost vacant with less than 10 members in presence. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Senator Ahmed Khan raised the issue of low attendance by pointing out quorum. The bells were rung to alert lawmakers to ensure their presence in the house but to no avail. Consequently, the chair adjourned the house till Friday without taking up any agenda on the orders of the day.
Soon after the adjournment of the sitting, BNP-M chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal told reporters outside the Senate Hall that the government got the house adjourned to stop his party’s Senator Roonjho from speaking on the floor.
Accompanied by Roonjho, he said that the legislator was going to speak about his experiences on how he was abducted to force him to vote for the amendment. “They broke the quorum to avoid embarrassment,” he said, adding that the senator was even stopped in the lobby to stop him from entering the house.
Addressing a press conference along with Mengal and other party leaders at the Parliament House, Senator Roonjho said he was detained by “some powerful people” for a week though he had to undergo kidney dialysis. “I contracted malaria due to mosquito bites (during this abduction),” he said, noting that he couldn’t narrate the ordeal he had to go through during this detention.
Hours later, Senator Roonjho in a video message denied the allegations and said that he was forced by his party leadership to speak at the news conference. “All the words I uttered were fabricated and based on lies,” he said, adding that he was forced to read out a written statement.
The lawmaker denied his abduction by anyone, saying he was present at his house for the last two weeks.
Earlier in the day, Senator Roonjho had submitted his resignation from his membership of the upper house with the Senate Secretariat.
Mengal had instructed the two party lawmakers to promptly resign from the Senate, warning that both of them would be excluded from the party if they failed to follow the directions.