ISLAMABAD: The all-important session of the National Assembly summoned at the request of the opposition parties seeking to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion has kicked off at Parliament House in Islamabad.
Ahead of the session, the top opposition leadership has started to arrive at the Parliament House. Several bigwigs, including PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif have reached the lower house to attend the extremely important session.
For the session, the opposition has finalised its strategy for not allowing any adjournment of the session without tabling of the motion. As per the house tradition, the speaker can adjourn the session by converting the meeting into a condolence reference on the demise of a ruling party member.
There is a strong possibility, according to sources, the opposition would lodge strong protests if the proceedings were adjourned. They added that the opposition would hold the power show in the house from Friday and had issued instructions to all its members to attend the meeting.
On the other hand, the sources added, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had not issued any special instructions to its members for attending the session. It is because the session had been requisitioned by the opposition.
The opposition, which has 162 members, filed the con-confidence motion on March 8. The motion, moved by 152 opposition members, said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had lost the confidence of the house. The ruling coalition currently has the support of 179 members of the National Assembly.
Before the session, a meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) will be convened at the Zardari House in Islamabad with former president Asif Zardari and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the chair.
The PPP said in a statement that Zardari and Bilawal would give instructions to the PPP lawmakers regarding the party’s strategy for the National Assembly session as well as the strategy for the no-confidence motion.
