Speaker suspends membership of 27 Punjab MPAs after SC verdict

LAHORE – Yielding to pressure from the powerful opposition in the Punjab Assembly, Speaker Muhammad Ahmad Khan on Friday suspended the membership of 27 MPs of the ruling alliance who were given these seats over and above the actual quota of reserved seats initially allotted to it in polls dated February 8th.

A day earlier, the Speaker, in his reply to a point of order from Rana Aftab Ahmad Khan of the Opposition, had taken the stand that he had no power to stop MPAs elected on reserved seats from sitting in the House of Representatives, as per the Election Commission of Pakistan after the Supreme Court’s decision, she was excluded from membership.

However, the Speaker had told the opposition members that he would seek legal advice from the Legal Department and the Election Commission and take his decision on the matter. At the start of Friday’s meeting, the Speaker issued his decision to suspend the membership of 27 members without waiting for legal advice that was supposed to come from the two ministries.

Rana Aftab, in his point order a day earlier, had submitted before the Speaker that after the Supreme Court’s decision quashing the Peshawar High Court’s decision and the subsequent notification to the Election Commission, there was no justification for the participation of the MPAs concerned enter the meeting and vote on every matter.

The Speaker, in his decision, declared the point of order raised by Rana Aftab as proper and stated that since he now has the SC decision moved by Rana Aftab, he is convinced that these members should not sit in the House. The speaker also read out the Supreme Court verdict in the house.

Opposition MPs welcomed the verdict and praised the speaker by pounding his desk. Opposition leaders Ahmad Khan Bachhar and Rana Aftab welcomed the Speaker’s decision but questioned the legality of the resolution passed by the Assembly yesterday against the May 9 incidents. They argued that it was passed with the vote of strangers. The Speaker said that this particular issue was not addressed when the resolution was passed yesterday because the opposition was more interested in the fuss at that time.

Following the Speaker’s decision, the ruling alliance of PML-N, PPP, PML-Q and IPP has lost 24 seats with women and three minority MPAs. The suspended MPAs included 23 from PML-N, two from PPP and one each from IPP and PML-Q. Regardless of the Speaker’s decision, the numbers in the Punjab Assembly are still in favor of the ruling alliance. Previously, the PML-N enjoyed the support of 226 MPAs in the House of Representatives, but now its strength has been reduced to 203 following the suspension of its 23 MPs.