ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties in the Senate on Monday expressed their serious concerns over the alleged partisan conduct of Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani and vowed to put resistance with full force inside the house to prevent the chair from what they said violating the rules and regulations, besides not allowing him to use his discretionary powers unabatedly.

“The joint opposition has decided to play a more dynamic role in the Senate. From now on, violation of the rules and regulations and unabated use of discretionary powers by the chairman will not be allowed,” declared Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Irfan Siddiqui while talking to reporters with other opposition senators after attending a meeting of the joint opposition presided over by Opposition Leader Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Senator Siddiqui said the senators belonging to all the opposition parties had expressed serious reservations over the role of the Senate chairman. He said the standing committees of the house had been made ineffective and these committees were not even been allowed to form sub-committees. Moreover, he said, the senators had found that it had become increasingly difficult to summon government officials in the committee meetings.

Mr Siddiqui said the opposition was preparing a memorandum regarding its reservations which would be presented to Mr Sanjrani.

Criticises Sanjrani over ‘partial conduct’

“If these concerns are not addressed, the next step will be proposed,” he said without elaborating.

The PML-N senator further said that they had decided that they would give a tough time to the government in the Senate and as a first step, they would not allow Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan to answer all the questions during the Question Hour.

Replying to a question, Senator Siddiqui said just as the opposition parties were coming together on a common agenda by forgetting minor differences outside the Parliament, the opposition parties had also decided to play a more active role inside the parliament.

Replying to a question on no-confidence motion against the Senate chairman, Senator Irfan Siddiqui said this issue was not the part of today’s agenda. However, the leadership may consider this option later.

Pakistan People’s Party Senator Taj Haider on the occasion alleged that the role of the Senate chairman had paralysed the upper house of the parliament as he was facilitating the government and crushing the role of the opposition.

“In parliamentary history, I have never seen such behaviour of a chairman belonging to any party,” said Mr Haider.

“There is Senate session one day, then a two-day break. Again a meeting and then again two days break. This joke must stop now,” he said while referring to the government’s act of dragging the Senate session only to fulfill a key constitutional requirement of keeping the house in session for at least 110 days in a parliamentary year.

This was the second meeting of the joint opposition in the last four days. On Friday, Mr Gilani had presided over the first-ever meeting of the joint opposition of the upper house since his election.

In the meeting, the opposition senators had demanded that the fate of Senator Dilawar Khan’s six-member group must be decided to ascertain whether the group stood by the treasury or the opposition.

The meeting had raised multiple issues right from the “lopsided” attitude of the Senate chairman, non-effectiveness of standing committees, non-entertaining of thorny questions of the opposition, giving less time to the opposition members to speak on the floor of the house and why the opposition faced defeat on several occasions in the house despite having majority.

The joint opposition stressed the need for unity in its ranks to move no-confidence motion against the Senate chairman, if he did not mend his ways and failed to maintain balance between the opposition and the treasury.

The Dilawar Khan group, which sits on opposition benches and often votes for the treasury side, had also voted for the passage of the controversial bill granting autonomy to the State Bank of Pakistan.

In the meeting, the opposition members had asked Mr Gilani to write a letter to the Senate chairman to ascertain whether Dilawar Khan’s group was with the opposition or with the government.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2022