Daily Times

LAHORE: Following the failure of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to keep intact party members against opposition candidates in the recently held Senate election, chink in PML-N ranks widened further on Monday when a group of three women MPAs led by Ayesha Javed left their fixed seats and sat in the chairs at upper gallery of the House to attend the Punjab Assembly session.

MPAs Tamkeen Akhtar Khan Niazi and Najma Afzal Khan – elected on reserved seats for women from PML-N – were the other two members of the group, which was somewhat annoyed over “poor results” of the party in Senate polls.

The annoyed group of three left their chairs soon after PML-N MPA Farzana Butt said that it were male MPAs, and not the females, who had given votes to opposition.

At least 26 votes were bagged by opposition candidates from the ruling parties in the Punjab Assembly but they could manage to win only one seat, as all major opposition parties, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) had fielded their own candidates on general seats and did not cooperate with each other.

Ayesha Javed was also in the queue to become a senator on a reserved seat but Sadia Abbasi, sister of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, succeeding to get the position and also won the election.

Interestingly, on the polling day of Senate election, Ayesha Javed had denied to cast her vote when a deputy secretary-level personality asked her to take oath to prove her loyalty to the party. Later, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah made an apology to her and she agreed to cast her vote.

After adjournment of the session, when Ayesha was asked by journalists if they were forming a forward bloc in the treasury party? She replied in a lighter mood, saying: “No, we are more to it as we are fast forward bloc.”

Punjab Assembly on Monday started 48 minutes late to its scheduled time. However, the session was adjourned without completing the agenda till today (Tuesday) over quorum.

During the session, on a point of order, PTI’s Shoab Sadiqui and Dr Murad Rass congratulated his party candidate Chaudhry Sarwar on clinching victory in Senate election from Punjab.

Earlier, the House adopted a joint resolution against the killing of innocent civilians in Syria. The resolution was read out by opposition member Asif Mehmood of the PTI.

In the resolution it was demanded that the federal government should take measures to highlight the issue at United Nations and Organization of Islamic Countries to stop killings in Syria.

Published in Daily Times, March 6^th 2018.