Federal Budget formally approved by the National Assembly

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly of Pakistan today (Friday) formally approved the Federal Budget for the fiscal year 2019-20, ARY News reported.

The federal budget 2019 presented earlier in the month by the government had met strong resentment by the opposition benches.

At the start of the proceedings, Minister of State for Revenue and Finance Hammad Azhar moved the motion to present the finance bill before the house for consideration and voting.

After voice voting on the motion to introduce the bill, the opposition challenged the vote and asked the Speaker for a head count.

One hundred and seventy-six (176) members of treasury benches favoured the motion while 146 members of opposition opposed it.

After the passage of the motion with a majority vote, Minister for Revenue introduced the finance bill which was passed by the house with a majority of votes.

The opposition benches had formed a united front against the passing of the budget and held a much talked about All Parties Conference (APC) under the leadership of Jamiat Ulema Islam Fazal (JUI-F) Cheif Maulana Fazal Ur Rehman.

The opposition’s All Parties Conference on June 26 saw disagreement and disarray among its ranks when the members reportedly discouraged demands of collective resignation from the National Assembly.

The opposition leaders gathered at the Jamiat Ulema Islam Fazal (JUI-F) chief’s call to devise a mechanism to further protests and initiation of a possible street agitation against the current government and its policies was met with stiff dissent from among their ranks with the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) airing reservations over the call.

JUI-F, Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakhtun Khwa -MAP (PK-MAP) have been revealed as those in favour of the decision to resign.

JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazal Ur Rehman was the one who came up with the idea of collective resignations.

PPP and PML-N maintained that they were opposing the decision to keep the present government from playing the ‘victim card’.

The Major political players said that they were deliberating upon the option to resign but would only consider it as the last resort.

The APC also discussed plans to ask the current Chairman Senate and Deputy Chairman Senate to resign from their positions.

A possibility of the Deputy Chairman Saleem Mandviwalla’s resignation being presented was discussed as the first plan of action.

The opposition parties agreed on a concerted effort and campaign against the government although the Chairman of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari did not show interest towards the approach.

Other parties present have been trying to get the PPP chairman on board for the anti-government campaign idea which has met with failure thus far.

PPP and PML-N were observed charting out plans to first protest outside and within the National Assembly against the present Federal Government.

“We can’t leave any option open for the PTI-led government,” all parties agreed in the moot.

It was decided that constant pressure would be kept upon the government in the assembly and a proper strategy would be devised to give them a “tough time”.

The complete transcript of the APC shows the difference of opinion and it is being claimed that only 2 or 3 points in total were agreed upon in the long and arduous exercise.