Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: At the time when opposition benches are trying to give tough time to the government by staging walkouts from the National Assembly in last three consecutive sittings, the government’s failure to bring its own lawmakers to the House is adding more embarrassment for treasury benches.

On Wednesday, it was the third consecutive day when the opposition lawmakers opted to walkout for not including the FATA Reforms Bill into the agenda, which led the sitting to adjourn due to missing quorum.

Earlier, a deadlock was emerged on Monday over the exclusion of the Supreme Court and High Court (Extension of Jurisdiction to Federally Administered Tribal Areas) Bill, 2017, which was once made part of the agenda but later a revised order of the day was issued without containing the said bill.

Opposition leader in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah had on Monday announced to boycott of the proceedings of the house until the inclusion of aforementioned bill into the agenda.

However, the hard line stance taken by the opposition benches had also exposed the ill-discipline among parliamentarians of ruling party as they had been failed to maintain the quorum.

As per the rules of procedure and conduct of business, one-fourth of the total assembly membership is required to be present in a sitting otherwise any member can point out the lack of quorum.

There are a total of 342 seats in the National Assembly and the minimum 86 members are required to be present to maintain the quorum but only 53, 43 and 66 members of ruling party were present in the house on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

The low percentage of the attendance of lawmakers from treasury benches is a big question mark on the parliamentary discipline and progress whereas some quarters also believes that the assembly is losing its effectiveness day by day.

A lawmaker of the ruling party has explained on the condition of anonymity that the elections are due after few months and most of the members are busy in their constituencies. “The government can easily maintain quorum as it has the required number but we don’t have a leader in the house, who can integrate this strengthen,” he added.

Published in Daily Times, December 14^th 2017.