PM Abbasi has sought help from PPP over delimitation bill: Khursheed Shah

 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Khursheed Shah on Wednesday said that the prime minister has requested for his party's assistance for fresh delimitation of constituencies.

"PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has expressed his wish to meet Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari," the opposition leader in the National Assembly disclosed today. 

The ruling party needs PPP's assistance in order to safeguard itself from a constitutional crisis after it finds itself helpless for not having the required strength for approval of a constitutional amendment it has tabled in the upper house of the Parliament.

At least 69 votes are required to pass the Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2017 approved, which pertains to the fresh delimitation of constituencies in line with the provisional results of the latest census in light of the general elections next year.

Earlier today, the Senate decided to postpone the voting on the bill until Monday due to expected low attendance in the upper house, sources informed Geo News.

The upper house, however, managed to pass on Friday the Elections Amendment Bill, 2017, related to Khatam-e-Nabuwat (Finality of Prophethood) clauses for voters, after the National Assembly (NA) did the same on Thursday.

Discussing yesterday's proceedings in the lower house of Parliament on Tuesday, where the government and its allies rejected the amendment to Elections Bill 2017 presented as a joint effort of the opposition including PPP and PTI, Shah said that his party was aware of its strength in numbers.

"We are not bothered about our defeat," he said. "The point was to put forth our principal stance in the house and we did so."

The amendment had sought to restrict disqualified parliamentarians from heading a political party.

He also suggested that the government should seek help from the armed forces to disperse the Faizabad sit-in, which entered its seventeenth day today.

"PML-N is undergoing an internal crisis and government's writ has weakened," he said.

Interior minister lashes out at Rangers for blocking entry to court

Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was barred from entering the courts complex during Nawaz' Sharif's hearing

"A government's writ is proven weak when Rangers' personnel can prohibit an interior minister from entering a court's premises," Shah said, referring to the October 2 incident when Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was barred from entering a court's premises to where former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's hearing was underway.