Farrukh Habib says bills passed by NA can’t be withdrawn

By Muhammad JuniadPublished On 05 Jan 2023

• Farrukh Habib says attitude of the opposition towards the passage of the Electoral Reforms Bill was regrettable.
• Says the bills pending from 2019, 2020 had been passed through the process while the opposition is only interested in the NRO.
• The NA had passed a record 21 bills on June 10.

ISLAMABAD: The government has made it clear to the Opposition that bills passed by the National Assembly could not be withdrawn.

It was earlier reported that NA Speaker Asad Qaiser had hinted that the bills approved by the assembly last week can be reviewed.

The NA on June 10 had passed a record 21 government bills including laws related to the conduct of elections and the International Court of Justice (Review and Re-consideration) Bill, 2020 to bring into effect the judgment of the International Court of Justice in the case of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav.

Speaking here at a news conference, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib said that the attitude of the opposition towards the passage of the Electoral Reforms Bill was regrettable, whereas a strong democracy of any country is based on clean and transparent elections.

He said Imran Khan, who had introduced neutral umpire in cricket, wanted to end the noise of election rigging, adding that all the parties including the PPP and the JUI had objections to the 2013 elections and the PTI also raised its voice against it.

The minister pointed out that in the 10 years of governments from 2008 to 2018, the PML-N and the PPP had walked out, boycotted or hurled insults against each other in the House.

Farrukh Habib said that the bill pending from 2019, 2020 had been passed through the process, the opposition is only interested in the NRO bill, which is not going to be given.

He said that the government had approached the senior politicians, the Speaker of the National Assembly and the opposition but the attitude of the opposition was of non-cooperation.

He said that the PML-N ministers who were in office during their tenure should take a look at their collars before objecting to overseas Pakistanis.