ISLAMABAD, 20 January 2006 — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has called the last session of the present Senate, upper house of Parliament, today. The Senate, half of whose members will retire March 12, has a heavy agenda for today’s session.
Among those retiring are six ministers and the chairman of the Privatization Commission. Their retirement was decided through a draw of lots.
The ministers who will lose their Senate seats include retired Lt. Gen. Javed Ashraf Qazi, Wasim Shehzad, Muhammad Ali Durrani, Tariq Azeem Chaudhry and retired Justice Razzak Thaeem.
“There is very heavy agenda for the last session,” Sen. Farahatullah Baabar from the Pakistan People’s Party told Arab News, adding, “We have to discuss the prevailing political situation in the country.”
Sen. Sajjad Bukhari of the PPP said: “Issues like the attack in the Bajaur Agency and the situation in Balochistan and Waziristan will also come up for discussion.”
Independent Sen. Waqar Khan said: “We have to discuss the water shortage in the country as documented in the World Bank report.”
Sen. Waqar Khan has been strongly supporting the demand for the construction of the Kalabagh Dam which has been deferred by the president. He said the proposal for the dam should not be rejected without even discussing the overall water shortage.
Sen. Ilyas Bilour of the Awami National Party of North West Frontier Province opposed the Kalabagh Dam project as part of the policy of his party.
Sen. Azizullah Satakzai of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam told this reporter: “We are going to focus on the foreign policy and recent attacks by US forces inside Pakistan.”
Parliamentary observers expect a lot of firework during the session.
Professors Khurshid Ahmad and Ghafoor Ahamd of Jamaat-e-Islami, both of whom are vacating their seats on March 12, have already denounced the US airstrikes in Bajaur and Waziristan. The party will table a few adjournment motions on the subject, they said.
In a separate development, a splinter group within the Pakistan Muslim League (Quad-e-Azam Group) yesterday came out in the open to say that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz himself would lead the faction.
Member of the National Assembly from Bahawalpur Riaz Pirzada has been spearheading a move to form a bloc within the party. Yesterday he claimed many silent members of the PML had given their support to the bloc and that Aziz himself would head the faction.
Farooq Amjad Mir, another lawmaker, held a news conference in the afternoon and demanded that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain should step down from the leadership of the Muslim League. “A majority of the MNAs want Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as the next president of the Pakistan Muslim League,” he said.
Aziz currently is in the United States and could not be contacted for his comments, but many disgruntled legislators including Cabinet Minister Awais Leghari, son of former President Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari, lent their support to the bloc. “The Chaudhry brothers want to have the cake and eat it,” said Leghari.
The main reason for the ire of a section of the party lawmakers is nepotism by Shujaat’s cousin and chief minister of the populous Punjab province, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi. These lawmakers complain that the chief minister sanctions development projects only in areas where the Chaudhrys have their power base.
