Daily Times

After former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif was notified as leader of the opposition in National Assembly, his son Hamza Shehbaz is all set to become opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly as his requisition for the slot was submitted with Punjab Assembly Speaker on Friday.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Members of Provincial Assembly from Lahore, Khawaja Imran Nazir and Ramzan Siddique Bhatti submitted the requisition signed by the legislators of the party on behalf of Hamza Shehbaz in the assembly secretariat. The requisition doesn’t have signatures from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) legislators that has seven MPAs in the house of 371 as Khawaja Imran Nazir said on the occasion that PML-N is the largest party of opposition in the house and it was quite enough if they submit the requisition signed by a dozen MPAs only and therefore they didn’t ask the PPP to sign the requisition for leader of the opposition slot. It is worth mentioning that PPP didn’t take part in the elections for speaker, deputy speaker and leader of the house in the Punjab Assembly and abstained from voting.

A strong opposition is waiting for the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) in the Punjab Assembly keeping in view the number game where 166 MPAs will sit on the opposition benches in the house of 371. The ruling coalition of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid and PTI has 10 and 175 MPAs respectively while they have also support of one MPA from Pakistan Rah-e-Haq Party and there are two independents also in the house.

The opposition will be in a position to convene the session of the Punjab Assembly whenever it wants the session by giving a requisition to the Speaker. According to the rules, 94 of total 371 MPAs are required to sign a requisition for calling the assembly session and here only PML-N has strength of 159 MPAs in the Punjab Assembly and this figure would be quite enough to give really tough time to the ruling coalition in Punjab.

There were around 50 MPAs on the opposition benches in the last provincial assembly of the Punjab where the PML-N had overwhelming majority with 309 legislators while PTI had only 30 MPAs and both the PPP and PML-Q had eight MPAs each in the house and therefore the voice of the opposition used to be bulldozed by the ruling party.

Published in Daily Times, August 25^th 2018.