Opposition leader’s slot in Senate: PML-N-led alliance to have no impact

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led five-party opposition alliance with 27 Senators will have no impact on the already settled issue of opposition leader’s slot held by Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan People’s Party.

Sources in the Senate Secretariat told Business Recorder that Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani is required to issue a notification of a new leader of the opposition only after a Senator proves support of more than 30 opposition members through an application signed by them.

They said that Gilani has already proved the support of 30 opposition Senators and consequently his notification was issued. “Anyone from the opposition benches would require the support of 31 opposition members for de-seating Gilani from the office of the opposition leader,” a senior official of the Senate Secretariat said.

The tussle between two major opposition parties – PML-N and PPP – in Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) reached a new high on Friday following five opposition parties with 27 members announcing their own alliance in the Upper House.

The PML-N led alliance in the Senate includes 18 senators of its own, five of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), two of National Party (NP) and one each from Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M).

Gilani enjoys support of 30 members, which includes 21 of PPP, ANP 2, four independents led by Senator Dilawar Khan group, two independents from ex-Fata and one from Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).

The PML-N led alliance, following a consultative meeting of the PDM’s steering committee minus PPP and ANP held on Friday, decided to issue show-cause notices to PPP and ANP for going against the PDM’s earlier decision to give the slot of the opposition leader to PML-N.

Giving her party’s response, PPP’s central secretary-information Shazia Marri accused PML-N of using the platform of PDM against its own component parties, PPP and ANP, adding that the PDM was formed against the government.

About the show-cause notice, she said: “If PML-N resorts to bringing a ‘charge-sheet’ against PPP, then her party would also charge-sheet the PML-N for using the PDM alliance against the opposition and calling a ‘secret” meeting of certain parties of the PDM.”

Earlier in a statement on Wednesday, PPP leader Naveed Qamar stated that if the PML-N and the JUI-F decide not to recognise Gilani as opposition leader in the Senate, then his party would also be “forced” not to accept Shehbaz Sharif as opposition leader in the National Assembly.

According to a statement of Azam Nazir Tarar, PML-N’s parliamentary leader in the Senate, the five opposition parties have decided to form a new opposition alliance, with 27 senators.

He said that in the Friday’s meeting, the five parties urged PDM President Maulana Fazlur Rehman to serve show-cause notices on PPP and ANP, seeking explanation as to why both parties had violated the PDM decisions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021