Of late, people deputed to run the parliamentary business for the comfort of Imran government have been finding it extremely difficult to manage absolute command and control over directly elected house of our parliament, i.e., the National Assembly of Pakistan.

To set the rules for smooth delivery of the agenda, set for a specific session, the opposition representatives even refuse to meet the Speaker in his chamber. They don’t recognise Asad Qaisar as an authentic “custodian” of the house, providing sufficient space for the opposition to present its position on multiple issues of utmost public concern.

The Speaker is also alleged to have abandoned a well-established tradition that had been facilitating legislators, arrested for whatever reasons, to attend house-proceedings since the early 1990s, “simply to satisfy the vindictive obsessions of Imran Khan.”

The total breakdown of communication between the Speaker and opposition has eventually made the national assembly appear quite ‘dysfunctional’. It also helped perpetuating the feeling that “elected parliament” had turned redundant due to a peculiar version of hybrid democracy that Imran Khan has presumably brought to Pakistan after reaching the prime minister’s office in August 2018.

The prime minister does not seem to be upset about this feeling. Yet, many of his ‘well-wishers’, including some powerful ministers, seriously want that things should look different. They have started to establish formal and informal contacts with influential opposition representatives to reach some win-win understanding. Their attempts don’t appear to be succeeding, so far.

By reaching the Parliament building, too close to the start of National Assembly sitting of Monday, Ms Maryam Nawaz rather appeared as if fuelling and cementing the defiant posturing. She presided a lengthy meeting of legislators, still expressing allegiance to her father, Nawaz Sharif. It surely is too early to find out ‘the message,’ and its effective execution, she might have brought to them. But things, for sure, continue to look rough and tense in the National Assembly.

Immediately after the question hour on Monday, for example, the house was adjourned for prayers. Shahid Khaqan Abbassi, the former prime minister, rather forced it. After the break, however, the government failed to ensure presence of the minimum number required to maintain quorum. Without dealing with any legislative business the house had to be adjourned until Tuesday.

In the given context, the scene in the Senate remained amazingly smooth. It rather appeared doubly surprising, if you also consider the reality that in a house of 104, the opposition parties savor a brute majority.

Sadiq Sanjrani, the Chairman, deserves exclusive credit for the smooth sailings. With the perfect thick skin of a smart politician, he never feels shy of employing all possible tools to keep the opposition engaged. He also has developed the amazing ability of delivering for the government, even if seemingly “accommodating” to the opposition, at times. Asad Qaisar must adopt him as the ultimate mentor.

Sanjrani required no tutor to anticipate that the presence of Ms Maryam Nawaz in parliament house Monday could also trigger chaotic bedlam in the house he presides. With the clear intent of preempting the same, he reportedly reached the chambers allocated to Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, the PML-N connected leader of the opposition in the Senate. His visit seemed to have delivered in the end.

The Senate went on dealing with the day’s agenda, without much ado. During a sitting, reserved for the private initiatives in legislation, Javed Abbassi of the PML-N also led the show by proposing a plethora of new laws.

Dr Wasim Shahzad, the Leader of the House, often derides the loyalists of Nawaz Sharif by calling them “mental slaves.” But on Monday, he also displayed a large heart by not opposing, even one proposal tabled by Abbassi. He knew that the laws suggested by the PML-N legislator were simply being forwarded to standing committees. And these committees already are proving like a huge cold storage for “under consideration” initiatives in legislation.

Yet, the PTI government also succeeded in using Monday sitting of the Senate for scoring a huge political point. From the treasury benches, Faisal Javed firmly pressed for immediate approval of a new law, ostensibly drafted to ensure that lower staff and ‘junior journalists,” working for various television networks, were hired through “appropriately written contracts” and their wages are regularly paid at the end of each month.

With a very concerned heart, the government feigned to have drafted the said law after ‘discovering’ the mass scale retrenchments from various TV channels and the frightening feeling of insecurity gripping their low scale employees.

The concerned committee had apparently approved the proposed law, almost with “consensus.” Only one Senator, Pervez Rashid of the PML-N, had objected. Being a former minister of information, he opposed the idea that PEMRA, the regulatory body for TV channels, should also be empowered to oversee the HR-connected issues. He and the rest of opposition senators strongly believe that PEMRA would “certainly abuse the proposed powers to further shrink the space for independent media in the country.”

Being a former editor, Ms Sherry Rehman of the PPP quickly spotted the “controlling intent.” Raza Rabbani also supported her position with solid arguments. The government didn’t have numbers to get the proposed law approved, there and then, on its own. Yet it pressed the Chairman to put it before the House.

Doing this, the ruling party cunningly wanted to transmit the message that the opposition senators were just not pushed about “the miserable conditions of poor journalists, in spite of pretending being the ultimate protectors of the free press and people working for it.”

Senator Mushtaq Ahmad of the Jamaat-e-Islami intelligently countered their spin by worriedly recalling the unprecedented retrenchments the government controlled Radio Pakistan and Pakistan Television had enforced upon their employees. But the government refused to furnish any relief. The charitable pretensions of the same government looked dubious and hypocritical to Senator Mushtaq Ahmad.

The treasury members from Balochistan also behaved quite aggressive to refute the story, Osman Kakar of the Pashtun Milli Awami Party, tried to tell regarding the death of a female activist from Balochistan, Karima Baloch. He alleged that “formal and appropriate burial” was denied, when her dead body was brought to Pakistan from Canada the other day.

Senators, supporting the government from Balochistan, passionately defended the steps, “clearly required to prevent a law and order situation.” Doing this, they also vigorously took on “secessionists,” allegedly trying to stoke insurgency in their province with funds and instructions coming from India.