Constituency issues dominate NA session

• Deputy speaker defers entire 58-point agenda, including 20 private members’ bills
• PPP legislator demands policy statement from PM on new provinces
• MNAs voice concern over rise in violence against women

ISLAMABAD: It was a largely non-productive and wasteful day in the National Assembly on Tuesday as lawmakers spent nearly three hours raising petty issues, mostly related to their constituencies, under the guise of “points of order”.

Deputy Speaker Ghulam Shah showed great generosity by allowing more than three dozen members to speak on issues of their choice, after announcing that the day’s entire legislative agenda had been deferred under an agreement.

The deputy speaker, however, didn’t elaborate on where and with whom the understanding had been reached. Later, Aliya Kamran of the opposition Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) complained that her party was not consulted at all.

The deputy speaker deferred the entire 58-point agenda, which included 20 private members’ bills. The House, however, took up the two calling attention notices — one related to the high fees and charges being collected by private medical colleges and the other regarding persistent river erosion in Layyah district — besides unanimously passing a resolution to mark Eid Miladun Nabi.

Under the assembly rules, a member may raise a ‘point of order’ only to point out some violations during the proceedings and generally, the chair doesn’t allow the members to raise irrelevant issues under points of order.

Taking advantage of the free rein given by the chair, the members spoke on all kinds of issues, ranging from matters of national importance to the problems relating to their constituencies. Interestingly, no government representative was there to respond to or take note of the points raised by the members. Most of the issues highlighted by the lawmakers were related to the provincial governments or the local governments that were not functioning.

PTI lawmakers also talked about their constituency issues, but after protesting against the government’s alleged failure to implement the Supreme Court’s verdict regarding medical check-up of former prime minister Imran Khan at Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad.

The speeches of the opposition members were completely blacked out on the official social media accounts of the National Assembly.

Injustice to Sindh

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and PPP legislators mostly criticised the federal government over long and frequent power outages in Karachi and other parts of Sindh.

Another PPP MNA Sharmila Faruqui highlighted the alleged contradiction in the federal government’s development priorities, stating that while “the government repeatedly cites lack of fiscal space, it has approved Rs49bn in federal financing for the first phase of Lahore-Sahiwal-Bahawalnagar Motorway.” On the other hand, she said, the government had released only Rs30bn for the long-delayed strategic Hyderabad-Sukkur Motor­way, terming it a great injustice to the Sindh province.

Highlighting some recent incidents, including the murder of Hina Javed in Rawalpindi, some lawmakers expressed serious concerns over the increase in violence against women in the country.

Babar Nawaz and Shaista Khan of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) referring to the murder of five-year-old Ayat Noor in Haripur, lashed out at the PTI-led provincial government, questioning the alleged silence of Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and other party MPAs over the incident. The MNAs asked the KP government to take notice of the incident and bring the culprits to justice.

New provinces

PPP lawmaker Agha Rafiullah demanded that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif should come to the House to give a policy statement on the issue of new provinces.

Referring to a statement by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, the PPP MNA from Karachi alleged that a cabinet member had charge-sheeted his own government by declaring that the system had collapsed in the country.

On the other hand, PML-N lawmaker Babar Nawaz said the people of Hazara didn’t want to live under the present set-up and they wanted to have a separate province. He also claimed that historically, Hazara, Chitral and Swat had never been part of KP.

The National Assembly will now meet on Friday at 11am.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2026