The contentious bill for the 27th Constitutional Amendment sailed through the Senate on Monday after 64 lawmakers voted in its favour, with members of the opposition staging a noisy walkout.<\/p>\n
The government and its coalition partners secured a two-thirds majority in the vote following the defection of two opposition members, leading to a total of 64 votes for the bill.<\/p>\n
The bill, which had stirred controversy in the country for weeks, was presented in the Senate by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, while Senate Chairman Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani presided over the proceedings.<\/p>\n
Initially, a clause-by-clause voting was carried out. Later, voting by division was conducted, with the entry and exit gates of the Senate closed as per the protocol.<\/p>\n
Before the passage of the bill, opposition benches erupted in protest, chanting slogans against the government and its coalition partners. Lawmakers tore up copies of the bill and hurled them toward Tarar\u2019s table as he began to present it.<\/p>\n
Most opposition members then staged a walkout, while a few stayed briefly to continue sloganeering before exiting the chamber \u2014 paving the way for the smooth passage of the bill.<\/p>\n
A joint meeting of the Senate and the National Assembly\u2019s (NA) law and justice standing committees \u2014 boycotted by the opposition \u2014 approved the 27th Constitutional Amendment bill with minor changes. Senate Standing Committee of Law and Justice Chairman Farooq H. Naek presented a report on those before the Upper House.<\/p>\n
Following its approval by the Senate, the bill will also have to be voted on in the NA. The session had begun today but it was adjourned. The NA will now reconvene at 11am tomorrow (Tuesday).<\/p>\n
In the 336-member NA, the ruling coalition does enjoy a two-thirds majority. It has 233 members while the opposition holds 103. Within the coalition, the PML-N has 125 seats, PPP 74, MQM-P 22, PML-Q five, Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party four, and PML-Z, Balochistan Awami Party, and National Peoples Party one seat each.<\/p>\n
PTI senator resigns after voting in favour
\nSenator Saifullah Abro of the PTI resigned shortly after voting in favour of the bill. Speaking on the floor of the upper house, the lawmaker said he \u201cvoted only for Syed Gen Asim Munir\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added that the Pakistani armed forces made the nation proud by winning the war with India. \u201cDuring the 26th Amendment, 10 family members of mine were abducted, but my party (PTI) did not come to the rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he tendered his resignation, the Senate chairman said, \u201cWe will make you a senator again\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The contentious bill for the 27th Constitutional Amendment sailed through the Senate on Monday after 64 lawmakers voted in its favour, with members of the opposition staging a noisy walkout. The government and its coalition partners secured a two-thirds majority in the vote following the defection of two opposition members, leading to a total of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13345,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13343\/revisions\/13345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}