ISLAMABAD: The current government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), along with its allies, have failed quite miserably in its bid to legislate on various issues in the National Assembly during its three years term so far.
According to the facts and figures obtained by Bol News, a total of 755 bills were tabled in the National Assembly during this government’s tenure out of which only 111 could be passed till the end of 36th session of the House.
It is pertinent to mention here that the government could not do the required legislation in its three years term when its allies MQM and PML-Q had been fully supporting it in doing legislation in the parliament.
That is an embarrassingly poor ratio of success for the government by any standard and approximately comes to just 15 percent bills passed in three years. This shows that any fresh legislation in the House would be really challenging for the PTI to get approved, especially when its allies, too, are apparently distancing themselves from the ruling party.
The lower House of the Parliament could pass only 111 bills from its 36 session including 14 private members bills.
It is pertinent to mention here that currently the 38th session of the House is in progress and the government’s attempt to legislate and pass some important bills through joint session of the parliament has still not been able see the light of the day due to various reasons.
Recently, the government received another setback when it had to abruptly announce postponing of the joint session of the parliament which was scheduled to take up no less than 30 bills, including legislation regarding the electoral reforms.
Prior to postponement of this joint session, the government faced lot of embarrassment twice in the House when it could not stop the introduction of a bill of a member belonging to the opposition benches.
In a historic moment in the House, the opposition on Tuesday defeated the Treasury benches as the latter’s attempt to prevent a PML-N MNA from presenting a bill fell flat.
The government opposed the introduction of a bill moved by PML-N’s Javed Hasnain, seeking seven-year penalty for a candidate for contesting polls on another party’s ticket.
A total of 117 members of the opposition voted in the bill’s favour and 104 MNAs belonging to the government cast their vote against it. So the lawmaker of the opposition was allowed to present the bill which was a huge setback for the government which has been claiming a majority in the House.
According to the available data with this correspondent, a total of 253 bills were referred by the govt to the respective standing committees while 95 bills were deferred and 22 bills were rejected.
A total of 210 bills were not taken up and 14 bills were withdrawn till the 36th session of the House.
Meanwhile, no less than 46 ordinances were passed during the current PTI government. The government which still claims majority in the parliament is committed to do legislation on the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and I-voting for the overseas Pakistanis.
However, so far the government has faced a tough resistance from the opposition benches to do legislation in this regard. The opposition believes that it would pave way for rigging in the elections and the government maintains that it would bring transparency in the election process.
However, ongoing trends in the parliament with regards to legislation may witness an even tougher period for the Treasury benches in the coming days, at a juncture when maintaining quorum in the House seems to be a major obstacle for them.