Love-hate relationship: PPP, MQM fight takes up all of session time

Session called after two months continue to dwell on minor issues.

KARACHI:

The love-hate relationship between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) took a new low on Tuesday when the lawmakers spent the entire session fighting.

The fight started when the treasury members refused to admit a privilege motion filed by an MQM MPA, insisting that it was inadmissible. Tuesday was, however, a private-members’ day in which lawmakers are given a chance to present resolution and private bills.

MQM’s deputy parliamentary leader Khawaja Izharul Hassan and Abdul Haseeb Khan moved a motion in which they narrated an incident when a policeman allegedly misbehaved with them. On January 20, the two men were going to their camp at Numaish on MA Jinnah Road, along with another MNA and a few members of the party’s coordination committee, when a policeman refused their entry.

“We informed the ASP that we were lawmakers but he misbehaved with us,” said the two lawmakers as they read aloud their privilege motion.

The minister for parliamentary affairs, Dr Sikandar Mandhro, opposed the motion and called it ‘non-maintainable’. Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, who also holds the portfolio of the home department, stood up to narrate his version of the events. Quoting a police report on the same incident, Shah said that the MQM lawmakers were trying to take their vehicles into a site blocked for traffic, given the security reason for Rabiul Awal. “These friends and their party workers were going to enter their vehicles, along with weapons, that is why the police stopped them.”

When MQM’s Muhammad Hussain interrupted and said the story is false, the PPP lawmakers lost their cool and shouted at Hussain for speaking against the leader of the house. This resulted in a war of words between the lawmakers of the two parties. Opposition leader Faisal Subzwari, who also belongs to the MQM, stepped in to console the members. MQM’s Hassan clarified that they were accompanied with police guards and not private security. Dr Mandhro and Nisar Khuhro assured them they will investigate the matter.

Syed Sardar Ahmed of the MQM stressed that investigations must be conducted by forming a committee of the members of the house. Pakistan Muslim League-Functional MPA Imtiaz Shaikh also endorsed Ahmed’s idea. He agreed the policeman, in question, had breached a privilege of the house. The MQM MPAs later deferred their privilege motion.

Private-members’ days

Around five resolutions, three private bills and five private motions tabled by MPAs were on the agenda but the speaker was unable to take them up. The session was adjourned till Friday. “We spent most of the time on other things and were unable to finish the agenda on private-members’ days,” said speaker Agha Siraj Durrani. The resolutions against the attack on polio workers, against Pakistan Protection Ordinance, demands for a ban on the sale of Iranian Oil, low pressure of gas and two per cent disable quota were on the agenda for Tuesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2014.