ANP stages walkout from National Assembly on third consecutive day

Awami National Party (ANP) staged walkout from National Assembly on the third consecutive day in protest against the government decision to abolish commissionerate system and restore local bodies system 2001 in Karachi and Hyderabad. Pakistan People's Party member from Sindh, Syed Zafar Ali Shah also joined the ANP members protesting over restoration of local government system 2001 without taking the coalition partners into confidence.
Haji Pervez of ANP stood up on a point of order and stated that ANP was coalition partners but the ruling party did not consult them before rolling back the commissionerate system and invited other members representing the Sindh province to join them and members from Sindh province immediately joined Zafar Ali Shah.
Earlier, taking part in the debate, Sardar Bahadur Khan Sehrr of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) who spoke more on creation of new provinces than on law and order situation in Karachi vehemently supported demand for creation of more provinces on cultural basis. He said that voices are now coming in great number from Southern Punjab for a separate province largely because they are feeling deprived. His point of view was that more provinces were needed to be created on civilisation and cultural ground rather than administration and also gave example of how Sindh was separated from Mumbai and NWFP from Punjab on these grounds. Birjees Tahir of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) rejected the notion of creating new provinces on linguistic basis. He said that some people have deliberately started debate of new provinces to divert focus of the people from real issues. He said that the government has failed to resolve any of the issue during the last three years. Barjees said that strong institutions are critical to put the country on path to development. Muneer Khan Aurakzai strongly opposed the idea for merger of Fata into KP.