Daily Times

Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has summoned the session of assembly, on the requisition of the opposition, next week on October 11 in the morning.

It will be the 15th session of the ongoing Punjab Assembly that will be held on October 11 in the assembly chambers and the notification in this regard has also been issued.

The opposition submitted the requisition to convene the session of Punjab Assembly on Wednesday as it wanted to debate various issues, including the recent outbreak of dengue and deteriorating law and order of the province. The requisition was submitted by both the PML-N and PPP on Wednesday. The requisition was submitted by the PML-N’s MPAs Samiullah Khan and Zeeshan Rafique on behalf of the other MPAs of PML-N and PPP, which had the signatures of over 100 lawmakers.

The requisition was submitted under Article 54(3) read with Article 127 of the Constitution of Pakistan by citing the reason that they wanted to discuss the failure of the Punjab government to control dengue, failure of Health Department to provide health services, Kashmir issue, poor law and order situation and day by day increase in inflation. According to the rules, the Punjab Assembly speaker is bound to call the assembly session within 14 days if a requisition is signed by not less than one-fourth members of the total strength of the House. In a House of 371, at least 93 MPAs are required to give a requisition to the speaker for summoning the Punjab Assembly session and PML-N and PPP has over 170 MPAs in the House.

Talking to this scribe, MPA Samiullah Khan said that the government has miserably failed to provide relief to the people even after more than one year and therefore we want to raise the issues of public importance in the House. “The PPP is also on board for this session as I myself contacted the PPP’s parliamentary leader Syed Hassan Murtaza to discuss the requisition for calling the session,” Samiullah said. He further added that the Health Department is on one side giving the public sector hospitals to the private board of governors and on the other hand it was handing over the privately run board of governors of Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI) to the government. He was of the view that the opposition wanted to debate the issues of public interest in the House, which was the most august and largest house of this province where people’s representatives sit to debate the issues. He further added that they would also demand the production orders of detained lawmakers, including Opposition Leader Hamza Shahbaz and MPA Kh Salman Rafique, from the Speaker Elahi.