Opposition plans protest over detained MPS
ISLAMABAD: Ater defeat of its no-trust motion against the Senate chairman, the opposition is now pondering over a plan to register a strong protest against National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser for not issuing production orders for its arrested members.
A senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader said that they had been raising the issue for the past many days and in almost every session of the assembly in a polite way, but it seemed that now they would have to devise a strategy to forcefully pressurise the speaker to issue production orders for the arrested legislators.
The opposition members have been alleging that the speaker is not issuing production orders because he is under pressure directly from Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The other day, the issue was raised by PPP’S parliamentary leader Syed Naveed Qamar who said it was unprecedented in parliamentary history that six MNAS were behind bars at the same time.
Besides former president Asif Zardari, other oppositionlawmakersunderdetentionareformerprime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) stalwarts Khawaja Saad Rafique and Rana Sanaullah and two independent MPS from Waziristan, Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir.
The criticism of the speaker by Qamar for not issuing production orders had angered Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri, who was presiding over the siting at the time. The deputy speaker even ordered that Qamar’s mike be switched off.
When the deputy speaker was responding to Qamar’sspeech,anumberofpppwomenmembers, carrying placards inscribed with demand for issuance of production orders, gathered in front of his dais and started raising slogans. Qamar claimed that the speaker had issued production orders for four of the MPS, including Zardari, but the orders were later withheld for unknown reasons.
“The speaker has issued the production orders for four members, but I don’t know what happened afterwards, whether these orders were not dispatched to the authorities concerned or were withdrawn,” Qamar said.
Qamar said they had the option of “completely disrupting”theassemblyproceedingswhich,hesaid,“is possible”,buttheyalsowantedtoraiseotherimportant issues concerning the general public, particularly the recent government decision to increase oil prices.
The PPP leader said there were so many issues like inflation and lack of press freedom in the country which the opposition wanted to discuss on the floor of the assembly, but it seemed that the government was not interested in running parliament.