While the Constitution Drafting committee was engaged in this task, a senior Bengali Government official brought a message that a decision had already been taken to postpone the National Assembly session. He advised that Sheikh Mujib should immediately see Governor Ahsan to remonstrate with him. Sheikh Mujib was informed of this and the same morning he met Ahsan who also appeared to be disturbed by this report. Sheikh Mujib informed Ahsan that such postponement would be seen by the Bengali people as a conspiracy to deprive them of their rights as a majority, and the situation would explode. Ahsan promised to convey this to Islamabad. Later he confirmed that he had conveyed this view but there was no change in the decision. Indeed, he said that he had on his own suggested that if there was to be a postponement, it should be for a specific number of days and not for an indefinite period. In a specch on 28 February, Sheikh Mujib said that if any individual member of the Assembly said any reasonable thing, it should be accepted. On that day, Bhutto, in a long statement stated that he had narrowed down his disagreement to foreign trade and foreign aid, and that he could not give in on foreign trade and aid. He concluded by saying that either the Assembly Session should be postponed or 120 day time limit for Constitution-making should be removed.
Yahya's adviser's account of the immediate background of the postponement shows Bhutto was by now, working jointly in tending with the military junta. His report states:
So Yahya continued to pay his role in an untenable situation. Following Bhutto's threat, the National Assembly, which had been scheduled to meet on March 3, was postponed indefinitely. Yahya's announcement on March 1 on the postponement of the Assembly could not have been more provocative or tragic. When I asked him about it on March 5, he looked vacant and helpless; I was convinced he had only been a signatory to it. Bhutto and Peerzada were reported to have drafted the statement. Yahya, unlike on previous occasions, did not broadcast it; it was only read out over the radio.
Before Yahya left Rawalpindi for Karachi to persuade Bhutto to go to Dacca so that the National Assembly might not be postponed, he had already sent Peerzada. Ahsan and Yakub on the same mission to persuade to Bhutto to attend the National Assembly. He gave a solemn promise that if Mujib were to "thrust a Six-point constitution” against the wishes of the West Pakistan members and if his constitutional draft would mean splitting the country, he would at once prorogue the assembly; however nothing could satisfy Bhutto. When it became evident that as a result of Bhutto's threat of boycotting the assembly, the majority of the West Pakistan Assembly members would not attend the session, Yahya decided to postpone the summoning of the assembly, but he wanted to issue a statement which should cause the least provocation possible in East Pakistan. Though I was no longer a member of his cabinet, Yahya asked me to prepare a statement in a conciliatory vein. I immediately began to draft the proposed statement, which ran as follows:
