Pak Army rejects allegations of foiling no-confidence move against Senate Chairman

The Pakistan Army on Friday rejected the allegations that the country's top spy agency ISI played any kind of role in foiling a no-confidence move against Senate chairman Sadiq Sanjrani.

Sanjrani on Thursday survived the no-confidence vote tabled by the Opposition, in a major setback for the Opposition parties who were confident of their victory.

The move by the joint Opposition failed to get the simple majority of total members as only 50 Senators supported the move, falling short of three votes to oust the chairman.

The loss shook the Opposition as just half an hour before the start of voting, all 64 Opposition Senators had stood up to show support for the resolution against Sanjrani.

But 14 of them changed loyalty during the secret ballot in a huge embarrassment to the Pakistan Muslims League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islama Fazl (JUI-F), the National Party and their other allies.

Reacting to the loss, Opposition Senator Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo, who was joint candidate for chairmanship of senate, accused Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed for the intervention.

"They were General Faiz's people General Faiz who is chief of ISI. I hope you know him," Bizenjo said when asked by a reporter who the defecting senators represented.

Army spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor took to social media to reject the allegations.

"Remarks by Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo implicating head of national premier institution are unfounded. The tendency to bring entire democratic process into disrepute for petty political gains doesn't serve democracy," Ghafoor tweeted.

Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak also criticised Bizenjo for his remarks against the ISI chief.

"It is better for Mir Hasil Bizenjo to accept his defeat in the no-confidence motion against the Senate chairman than leveling such unfounded allegations," Khattak said in a statement.

The Minister said Bizenjo's statement did not reflect his political wisdom and maturity.

Meanwhile, the Opposition parties are trying to recover from the shock defeat as they pledged to hunt down their erring Senators and bring them before people.

"We will identify those who changed their loyalty within a short time and cheated their parties," PML-N leader Shehbaz Sharif said.

But the government supported those voted to support Sanjrani.

"They have voted according to their conscious and rejected dynastic politics of parties," said Special Assistant to Prime Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan.

It was for the first time that a non-confidence motion was moved against chairman and deputy chairman.