Khosa blocked unification ministers, Riaz tells PA

Former senior minister criticises Sharifs for seeking military’s help.

LAHORE:

Governor Latif Khosa had refused to administer oath to the members of the Unification Bloc if they were inducted in the provincial cabinet, newly-appointed opposition leader Raja Riaz told the House on Friday.

He was speaking on the opening day of the 23rd session of the Punjab Assembly. When the house was adjourned till Monday Riaz was still on his feet.

Riaz criticised the Sharif brothers for seeking military and courts’ help in resolving the country’s problems. He said the provincial government was being run in an undemocratic manner. He said it was on account of Shahbaz’s attitude that his secretary, Dr Touqeer, had taken to openly insulting ministers and public representatives, including those from the PML-N.

Riaz said the PML-N had violated the Charter of Democracy in seeking support of the Unification Bloc in the assembly. He said the PPP and the PML-Q would not let the house to be run smoothly until the PML-N had disowned the Unification Bloc members. “We will force the PML-N to send the ‘turncoats’ back to their parent party,” he said.

Riaz said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif should have attended the session and suggested that his absence was a violation of the privilege of the house. He said as leader of the house, Shahbaz should himself respond to the speech by the leader of the opposition. He said Sharif’s decision to part ways with the PPP in the Punjab was criticised even by some members of his own party.

Earlier, the session started without an agreement on the agenda for the day as the PPP and PML-Q members kept shouting ‘lota’ at the Unification Bloc members, who were allotted treasury benches for the session.

Rising on a point of order, Saeed Akbar Niwani, a Unification Bloc member, requested the opposition MPAs to stop the sloganeering, saying that it would only bring a bad name to the politicians and encourage the ‘third force’ to intervene.

Dr Tahir Ali Javed said he and his colleagues had decided to ignore the opposition’s taunts because they did not want the house proceedings to be disrupted.

Some PML-N members responded with slogans against the federal government and PPP leadership. On several occasions, the MPAs used unparliamentarily language.

The assembly unanimously adopted a resolution to condemn the murder of the former federal minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti. The resolution was moved by Provincial Minister for Minorities Kamran Michael.

Earlier, before the start of the session, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah briefed the media on the agenda of the session. He said the session would last for 20 days. He said 49 adjournment motions, a privilege motion, 26 call attention notices, 37 resolutions and 20 bills would be taken up during the session.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2011.