QUETTA
\nThe 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 \u201cconstitutional package\u201d.
\nThe \u201cconstitutional package\u201d 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.
\nA constitutional amendment is passed or rejected through open ballot, in which those who go against their parties\u2019 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\u2019s senators were being raided.
\n\u201cThere is Senator Muhammad Qasim whose house was raided and even now, in Karachi, intelligence agencies\u2019 cars are patrolling his house,\u201d Mengal alleged.
\n\u201cOur second senator Nasima Ehsaan has said that her relatives and her husband are being pressurised,\u201d he added.
\nHe said Ehsaan was threatened that her property would be confiscated, adding that the government was only having \u201cthis kind of communication\u201d with the party.
\n\u201cBut no formal communication took place,\u201d 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.
\nOpposition parties \u2014 including the PTI, BNP-M and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) \u2014 have warned their members that they could be unseated from parliament if they voted in favour of the proposed constitutional package.
\nEarlier 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\u2019s top leadership into custody.
\nSpeaking on a point of order on the floor of the National Assembly on Monday, Qaiser said his party\u2019s lawmakers were being \u201ccoerced\u201d to support the government\u2019s legislative package and asked deputy speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah to intervene.
\n\u201cWe 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],\u201d said Mr Qaiser, who had served as the NA speaker during the Imran Khan government.
\nHe also alleged that some opposition members were being lured with different offers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u201cconstitutional package\u201d. The \u201cconstitutional package\u201d is a set of proposed amendments to the Constitution that aims to among other things fix the tenure of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-431285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-national"},"yoast_head":"\n