Islamabad - The Senate, which started its session with Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani in the chair on Thursday, will take up for consideration the 31st constitution amendment, seeking the merger of Fata with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa today.
During Thursday proceedings, three bills “The Succession (Amendment) Bill, 2018,” “The West Pakistan Juvenile Smoking (Repeal) Bill, 2018” and “The West Pakistan Prohibition of Smoking in Cinema Houses (Repeal) Bill, 2018” were laid before the House. The chair referred the bills to the committees concerned of the House.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition in the House Senator Sherry Rehman while speaking on a point of public importance called upon all the members of the House to pass the historic 31st constitutional amendment, which was passed by the National Assembly with 229 votes in favour on Thursday.
During the vote, 229 members of the assembly assented to the introduction of the bill while one voted against it.
The JUI-F and PkMAP opposed the bill, while MQM announced its grudging support after expressing its reservations.
Representing PkMAP in the National Assembly, Abdul Qahar defended his party’s position and said that they had always termed the bill controversial. He added that the people of Fata should be given the right to decide about their own future.
Representing JUI-F, Jamaluddin called it a “black day” as the parliament was about to remove the word Fata from the country’s Constitution. He alleged that Fata was being merged with KP as part of a foreign agenda.
Jamaluddin noted that both the PML-N and the PTI “curse each other” all the time, but “today they have joined hands to usurp the rights of the people of Fata”.
