Karachi: In line with the Supreme Court’s orders, the opposition and ruling PPP on Tuesday agreed on forming a select committee of the Sindh Assembly to evolve unanimous amendments to the controversial local government law.
The house select committee will make recommendations to help evolve a draft of amendments to the Sindh local government law, as directed by the apex court.
The committee will have its members from opposition parties including PTI’s Haleem Adil Sheikh, Khurram Sher Zaman, Syed Firdous Shamim Naqvi and Arsalan Taj.
Kanwar Naveed Jameel, Muhammad Hussain and Javed Hanif Khan will be from MQM, while GDA will be represented by Barrister Hasnain Ali Mirza and Nand Kumar Goklani in the committee. Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and Saeed Ghani with a few others will be from the PPP.
Speaker, Aga Siraj Khan Durrani, soon after the house inaugural prayer session concluded, asked the assembly about the select committee formation as per the court’s directives.
He told the house that the opposition parties have not provided their names for the proposed select committee to review the local government act and recommend fresh amendments to the law.
In a reply, Sindh Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla told the speaker that opposition leader Haleem Adil Sheikh wanted to keep the issue secret without disclosing the committee to other parties on his side.
This; however, caused some controversy on the floor of the house as Mukesh and Sheikh both exchanged some bitter words. Sheikh assured the speaker that opposition parties are ready to name their legislators to form the committee.
The committee widely left out the small parties like MMA and TLP to seek their output directly. Aga Siraj Khan Durrani asked the legislators to help run the house smoothly and sought their cooperation.
MMA’s only lawmaker, Syed Abdul Rasheed called upon GDA’s minority legislator to refrain from “anti-Islam” act before leaving the assembly in protest against bypassing of his private resolution.
The angry legislator also accused the ruling PPP of “anti-people” and “anti-Islam” for bypassing his resolution that was about “making Quran learning mandatory in schools from class one to class 10th” in the province.
Resolution was on the agenda (of the assembly) but was not placed (in the house),” he angrily said, adding that the PPP government is making the education system “secular”. He also accused it of violating the rules and procedures of the assembly.
He said Nand Kumar Goklani’s resolution was tabled out of turn in the house to block the move to seek a mandate for Quranic education in schools. He asked Nand Kumar to refrain from being anti-Islam as has been used against “Islamization”.
A private move by Muhammad Hussain was sent a concerned committee of the assembly to review and present it in the house in a week span. The move was about making it mandatory for all correspondences in the province to add “Peace Be Upon Him” to the name of Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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