Bilawal urges PTI to rejoin panels, seeks security briefing for parliament

ISLAMABAD: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Thursday urged the PTI to end its boycott of parliamentary committees and join a proposed electoral reforms committee, telling the National Assembly that the opposition cannot demand electoral accountability while staying away from the forums meant to address its complaints.

Speaking on a point of order, he aimed the appeal at Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Mehmood Khan Achakzai, asking him to use the authority Imran Khan had entrusted to him to bring opposition lawmakers into the process and to have PTI members submit their nominations to the speaker's office.

"If you want concerns about rigging in future elections to be addressed, you must participate in the electoral reforms committee," Bilawal said, according to Business Recorder's account of the proceedings. He said the committee would have little purpose without the opposition and insisted the government was willing to engage its rivals.

"Parliament is powerful, and if parliament is powerful, we are all powerful," he said, warning that those seeking a weak legislature succeeded whenever elected representatives failed to use its forums. Parties, he added, were duty-bound to raise public concerns through debate rather than stay absent.

According to The Nation, Bilawal also asked that parliament be taken into confidence on the country's security and economic challenges, developments involving Iran and their implications for Pakistan, and the risks attached to its defence agreements. Every lawmaker, he said, had a right to know what challenges the country faced and how the government intended to respond.

PTI's Ali Muhammad Khan welcomed the emphasis on strengthening parliament, a point of agreement in an otherwise divided house. Achakzai said parliament should be the principal source of political authority and urged the government to strengthen the institution instead of letting political disputes weaken it. He repeated his demand for a committee to examine corruption allegations against the government and appealed for reconciliation: "Neither are you so good, nor are we so bad. Let us sit together."

The debate later turned combative. Railways Minister Hanif Abbasi criticised JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and accused politicians of exploiting religion and regional identity for political gain, while defending the armed forces and police, particularly personnel confronting militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and calling for national unity.

JUI-F's Maulana Ghafoor Haideri accused the PML-N of double standards on the military establishment, saying his party had condemned martial law when the PML-N held a two-thirds majority while the ruling party had not passed even a resolution against it. He also criticised the government's handling of relations with neighbouring countries and rejected allegations that his party supported militancy, saying the JUI-F had declared taking up arms against the state impermissible and had itself suffered attacks.