Horse-trading in Senate: Cabinet’s approval will be sought for legislation: Babar

ISLAMABAD: The Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs, Babar Awan, on Monday said that the cabinet’s approval will be sought for legislation to end horse trading in the Senate.

Talking to journalists, he said that an important meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by the prime minister will be held on Tuesday to discuss what could be done to end horse trading in the Senate elections.

He said that the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry will give a detailed briefing to the cabinet about the changes needed to be made to the constitution to end the menace of horse trading once and for all in the elections of the upper house of the parliament.

Awan said that through a reference, president of Pakistan had sought opinion from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which gave its opinion, and ruled that secrecy of the ballot “is not absolute”.

He said that after the legislation, the votes which a party is supposed to get could be checked in order to make sure whether it got the desired votes or not. In this regard, the adviser said that Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry are in touch, and the legislation will be done in consultation with the ECP.

On the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan, he added, debate on Sialkot lynching incident will be held in the National Assembly and the Senate next week. The adviser has also held a consultative meeting with Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani to discuss the matter.

The sources said that Senate session is going to be summoned on December 20 as the National Assembly session has already been summoned on December 22. Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara was assaulted by a mob of hundreds of people before being dragged into the streets and set on fire in Sialkot, where he helped run a sports equipment factory. Workers at the factory had accused him of committing blasphemy.

On December 3, Prime Minister Imran Khan had called the “horrific vigilante attack” a “day of shame for Pakistan.”

In a tweet, the prime minister stated that he was overseeing the investigations and assured that all those responsible would be dealt with the severity of the law.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021