QUETTA
The Chief of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) Akhtar Mengal has claimed that two senators of his party were being pressurised to vote in favour of a highly anticipated “constitutional package”.
The “constitutional package” is a set of proposed amendments to the Constitution that aims to among other things fix the tenure of the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) at three years.
A constitutional amendment is passed or rejected through open ballot, in which those who go against their parties’ stance cannot conceal their vote. While speaking to a private TV channel, the BNP-M leader said that the houses of two of his party’s senators were being raided.
“There is Senator Muhammad Qasim whose house was raided and even now, in Karachi, intelligence agencies’ cars are patrolling his house,” Mengal alleged.
“Our second senator Nasima Ehsaan has said that her relatives and her husband are being pressurised,” he added.
He said Ehsaan was threatened that her property would be confiscated, adding that the government was only having “this kind of communication” with the party.
“But no formal communication took place,” he said. Mengal added that the government wanted to bring about the constitutional amendment by either keeping the people unaware of it or by using force.
Opposition parties — including the PTI, BNP-M and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) — have warned their members that they could be unseated from parliament if they voted in favour of the proposed constitutional package.
Earlier this week, senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser accused the government of using strong-arm tactics to bully its opponents into supporting the constitutional package, hours before before police swung into action and took the PTI’s top leadership into custody.
Speaking on a point of order on the floor of the National Assembly on Monday, Qaiser said his party’s lawmakers were being “coerced” to support the government’s legislative package and asked deputy speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah to intervene.
“We have been receiving complaints from our MNAs. They are constantly receiving threats. They are being coerced to support a legislative package which the government is bringing [to the parliament],” said Mr Qaiser, who had served as the NA speaker during the Imran Khan government.
He also alleged that some opposition members were being lured with different offers.
