Political adamancy demonstrated by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz by withholding the names of two Punjab Assembly members on the parliamentary commission for carving out of new provinces out of Punjab is not understandable when the legislature of the province they are ruling passed in May two resolutions for more provinces in Punjab. The issue saw the proceedings of the provincial assembly blocked for hours on Tuesday, the private members day, when PPP and PML-Q legislators laid a virtual siege of the Speaker’s rostrum yelling slogans in support of their demand of sending his nominations for the commission. The attitude only shows either the ruling PML-N has no respect for the resolutions or its own members from south Punjab who overwhelmingly voted for the two resolutions. Another inference that can be drawn in the situation is that the ruling party of the largest province caters no deference for the National Assembly whose Speaker, Dr Fehmida Mirza, nominated 12 members of the commission on August 16, six each from the two houses of Parliament, including three PML-N lawmakers, and asked Punjab Assembly Speaker to nominate two more members to complete the commission. Perhaps, state institutions for PML-N do not include Parliament and executive and it envisions the Supreme Court as the only constitutional institution. This also means the PML-N has no trust on its own members nominated to the commission and wants to intervene in the working of the NA Speaker. Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan even went to the extent of demanding a national commission on carving more provinces in Punjab (PML-N seems fond of commissions and all-party conferences besides long marches) as if the Punjab Assembly resolutions enjoy no weight. This appears an attempt of distrusting the party’s own legislators and their desire contained in the resolutions.
Meanwhile, the commission held its first session and elected Senator Farhatullah Babar as its chairperson. It also embarked on working out the commission’s terms of reference and rules of business. The commission on the creation of more provinces has the mandate to look into issues related to fair distribution of economic and financial resources, demarcation, allocation and readjustment of seats in the National Assembly, Senate and the provincial assembly, and allocation of seats in the new province on the basis of population, including number of seats for minorities and women. The commission is required to submit its report to the National Assembly Speaker as well as to the Prime Minister within 30 days.
The creation of more provinces in Pakistan may be lauded in the sense that the step would further devolve administrative and financial powers, a progressive trend, being practised worldwide to empower the people at the lowest possible administrative tier. The system has yielded dividends and modern countries are an example of the success of the new order. But the commission must be forewarned not to entertain any proposal of creating more provinces on linguistic basis as it would only promote prejudices which already abound in the country. comments powered by Disqus
