Daily Times

The National Assembly Tuesday strongly opposed the proposed legislation on giving right to vote to the dual nationality holders. Initially, the proposed legislation was opposed by Noor Alam Khan, a former ruling party estranged member from Peshawar. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) estranged parliamentarian Noor Alam Khan basically rejected the dual nationals’ right to vote and introduced the Electoral Reforms Bill in the lower house session which was chaired by Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. By opposing giving the right to vote to dual nationals, the dissident PTI member said they will support the right to vote of overseas Pakistanis but not favour dual nationals to contest elections.

Introducing his bill in the House, Noor Alam said only the people who gave donations to their leaders were advocating the right to vote to dual nationals.

At the suggestion of Federal Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar, the deputy speaker referred the bill to the Electoral Reforms Committee by a majority vote. Later, the house was informed by Minister of State for Finance Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha that the government was utilizing all available resources to bring down prices of the essential items.

The minister was responding to a calling attention notice moved by Tahira Aurangzeb and others regarding increase in the prices of edible items in the country, causing grave concern among the public. Pasha said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, soon after assuming his office, had announced a massive relief package to protect people from high inflation.

She added that under the package, 19 essential items were provided at subsidized rates through the Utility Stores network across Pakistan. She said a ten-kilogram bag of wheat flour was sold at the rate of 400 rupees and sugar at 70 rupees per kilogram through the Utility Stores. She said the federal government was also requesting the provinces to provide essential items to the people at lower rates.

Presenting the Consumer Price Index of the last six weeks, Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha said wheat flour and sugar prices had decreased by over 17 percent and 2.5 percent respectively. During the course of proceedings, three bills were introduced in the house which included “The Election (Amendment) Bill, 2022”, “The Pakistan Environmental Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and “The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2022)”. The Chair referred the bills to the standing committees concerned of the House.