Punjab Assembly: Name-calling continues in 10-minute sitting

No settlement reached at two-hour business advisory committee meeting.

LAHORE:

The opposition and treasury benches continued an ugly war of words in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday, forcing a two-day adjournment.

The house had degenerated into chaos on Monday after an intemperate exchange between Law Minister Rana Sanaullah and PPP Deputy Parliamentary Leader Shaukat Basra that the speaker ordered expunged from the record.

The treasury and opposition had agreed to review footage of the proceedings in Tuesday’s business advisory committee meeting to determine which side had started insulting the other’s leadership first. The guilty party would then apologise in the house, and the assembly would return to its agenda.

However, despite over two hours of talks, no settlement was reached. Tanveer Ashraf Kaira of the PPP, who attended the meeting, said the footage clearly showed that Zaeem Hussain Qadri was the first to insult the PPP’s leadership, by shouting “lutairay” (thieves).

“The PML-N people denied this, saying he wasn’t talking about the PPP leaders,” said Kaira. The opposition members found this defence to be disingenuous, and so they walked out, he added. Despite Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal’s pleas that the assembly get back to work, they also decided not to allow the treasury to run the business of the house.

When assembly proceedings began, two hours and 15 minutes behind the scheduled start of 10am, the speaker announced the start of question hour. But before he could finish, Opposition Leader Raja Riaz rose in his seat and demanded a prayer for those who died from suspect medicines handed out at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology.

Opposition members stood, thumped their desks and began chanting the same phrase about the chief minister that had been expunged from the record a day earlier and which had prompted the angry outburst from Sanaullah.

Continuing, Riaz demanded that Sanaullah apologise for his remarks about the opposition on Monday.

He vowed that the opposition would not allow the house to take up routine business until then.

The speaker, after consulting with the law minister, adjourned the session till Friday morning. The sitting had lasted around 10 minutes.

An unapologetic Sanaullah later told reporters that General (retired) Pervez Musharraf had tried for eight years to force him to apologise, but he had refused and would have no difficulty resisting the opposition’s pressure in this case. He repeated to the cameras the remarks that were expunged from the parliamentary record.

Tuesday is the designated private members day, meaning it is reserved for motions and legislation proposed on a non-party basis. The day is often used by opposition members to criticise the government over policies in areas which usually do not get much attention. However, this was the sixth consecutive private members day in which no private members’ business was conducted.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st, 2012.