Second meeting of Parliamentary Committee ends inconclusively
22 March, 2013
ISLAMABAD: The bipartisan parliamentary committee constituted to appoint the caretaker prime minister remained unable to evolve a consensus on Thursday, leaving only one day for it to resolve the issue before the matter goes to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as per the constitution. The members of the committee, however, hoped that it would try its level best to settle the matter before it automatically goes to the ECP, with Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a member of the committee and PML-Q president, urging that the issue should be resolved by political people in the committee. The committee held its in-camera meeting at the Parliament House. As per the rotation policy, PML-N's member of the committee Sardar Yaqoob Nasir headed the meeting. Sardar Mehtab Abbasi, Khawaja Saad Rafiq and Senator Pervez Rasheed from the PML-N attended the meeting. The government side was represented by PPP's Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah and Farooq H Naek, PML-Q's Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and ANP's Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour. Later, briefing the media Syed Khursheed Shah said that the meeting remained inconclusive on Thursday, however he hinted that some progress has been made to evolve consensus on caretaker prime minister. He hoped that the committee would be able to decide the matter before the matter goes to ECP and indicated that political people would take the decision. He said that all the four names were thoroughly discussed in the meeting. The government forwarded the names of Dr Ishrat Hussain and Justice (r) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, while the opposition gave the names of Justice (r) Nasir Aslam Zahid and Rasool Bux Paleejo to the parliamentary panel. He disclosed that they had raised questions on the credentials of the nominees of the PML-N and the opposition party inquired about the names proposed by the government side. "All the details on queries about all the persons would be submitted in the committee on Friday (today) after which a final decision could be taken in," Shah said. ANP's Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour expressed the hope that the parliamentary committee would be able to settle the issues on the final day, whereas the same opinion was expressed by Shujaat Hussain. However, except Sardar Yaqoob Nasir other members of the committee from the PML-N side did not come to brief the media. End.
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