Agitated Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani unhappy with the absence of leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) on Friday stopped performing his duties in protest and returned the vehicle and protocol provided by the government.
According to sources, Rabbani has also cancelled his Iran tour.
Giving his remarks, Raza Rabbani said it seems that the government does not want to accept Senate’s constitutional status.
‘If the government has any issue with me, I am ready to resign but mockery of the Senate is intolerable,’ he added.
Meanwhile, members of the opposition termed the ministers’ absence as ‘contempt of the Parliament’ and stressed that matter will be resolved only after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s intervention.
Raza Rabbani, the senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader, is serving as the Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan since 12 March 2015.
Previous, he served as the chairman of the Senate standing committee on National Security and Constitutional reforms, between 2008 till 2013 and was responsible for the drafting of Amendment XVIII which turned Pakistan from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary republic.
He has been elected a senator six times since 1993 from the Sindh Province. He was a close aide to Benazir Bhutto who had appointed him the party’s deputy secretary general in 1997 and leader of the opposition in the Senate in 2005.
