Punjab Assembly session Day 3: No business again, more ruckus

PPP MPAs accused PML-N of using horse-trading as a tool in Punjab to revive the politics of the 1990s.

LAHORE:

The third day of the on-going Punjab Assembly (PA) session was spent much like the two days past. No official business or agenda of day could be tended. The Unification Bloc had managed to seat its leader Dr Tahir Ali Javed on a seat designated for ministers, but Dr Javed had to abandon the seat after a point of order was raised against his seating. The session had to be adjourned by the Deputy Speaker Rana Mashood Khan when efforts to pacify the members failed.

The session started an hour late and the house resounded with slogans of ‘lota’ as Dr Javed entered. When the Unification Bloc leader took one of the benches reserved for ministers, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam’s (PML-Q’s) leader Chaudhry Zaheeruddin Khan, rising on a point of order, asked Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan to put the house in order as an MPA was sitting in seats reserved for ministers, a violation of the Rules of Procedure.

The point was supported by the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP’s) deputy parliamentary leader in the PA, Shoukat Basra. Basra and other PPP members protested loudly as Dr Javed remained seated.

The speaker, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N’s) parliamentary leader in the PA, Rana Sanaullah, and the deputy speaker consulted PA Secretary Maqsood Malik and pored over the seating plan.

They discovered that, according to the seating plan, Dr Javed could not sit on seats reserved for ministers.

Sanaullah asked Dr Javed to sit on one of the seats reserved for parliamentary leaders of political parties.

The opposition leaders, however, were not satisfied with the move and demanded that Dr Javed also vacate that seat as opposition does not recognise him as a parliamentary party leader.

The chaos continued as both the speaker and deputy speaker had to leave the house and PML-N’s MPA Dr Asad Ashraf chaired the house for a while. The deputy speaker returned finally and announced that the house would resume business on Wednesday at 10 am.

Earlier, the speaker tried to run the house through the Question Hour of the Environmental Protection Department but had to stop as several PPP MPAs sought to speak on point of order.

Dr Muhammad Akhtar Malik said many doctors were on roads for the last 15 days but the government had ignored their demands. During the last two years, the MPA said, 4,000 doctors had left the country while another 2,000 were preparing to leave.

Sanaullah told the house that the Punjab government had constituted a committee to deal with the issue. He admitted that doctors were on strike but was quick to add that in 2009 and 2010, the government had taken several steps to improve the conditions for them.

Dr Malik demanded that a committee of the assembly be formed to look into the matter. The speaker asked for nominations to form such a committee. No names were offered up at the time.

Basra, also on a point of order, said that Bahawalpur police’s raids to doctors’ houses were condemnable. He warned the house that if the Punjab government tried to register an FIR against the protesting doctors, the PPP would protest both inside and outside the house.

PML-Q’s Dr Samia Amjad said the Punjab government has been advertising in different papers against the doctors.

She said the government had failed to spend on human rights so she boycotted the house for a while but Chaudhry Zaheeruddin Khan had taken her into the house.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2011.