Siege mentality takes over K-P Assembly

House passes land acquisition amendment bill amid opposition protest

PESHAWAR: The provincial assembly on Tuesday passed an amendment to the land acquisition bill even as the speaker surrounded himself with assembly staff to keep the protesting opposition parties at bay.

The opposition, however, claimed that the speaker is no longer neutral.

Opposition parties in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) assembly had vowed on Monday to prevent the house from functioning smoothly as part of their protest against the government’s nonchalant attitude towards the parliament and the opposition, particularly the attitude of government ministers who have been accused of taking the house for granted. The treasury benches were thus, expecting to walk into a house primed to erupt on Tuesday.

WIth the house due to convene at 2pm, the session did not start until at least an hour after the scheduled time.

During this time, the K-P Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani held meetings with the parliamentary parties and treasury benches to thrash out a strategy to adopt during Tuesday’s session. He suspended the assembly’s security staff who had failed to protect his seat during Monday’s session when Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Nighat Orakzai allegedly managed to grab it during the opposition protest.

Instead, he had the assembly staff form a human-chain around his station to prevent any unauthorised lawmaker from accessing it.

But that still did nothing to dissuade the opposition members who had come to the session with their own plans to disrupt the treasury benches.

When the treasury members finally walked into the house around 3:30pm, the opposition members were waiting for them.

As soon as the session resumed, members of the treasury benches started loudly banging their desks, hoping to drown out the vociferous chants of the opposition members.

The opposition’s chants against the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leadership and provincial leaders, including Chief Minister Mahmood Khan were punctuated by sounds of desks being banged. The echoes of “Go PTI Go, Go Niazi Go” could be distinctly made out over the barbs being traded between the opposition and treasury benches.

House business

The opposition’s agitation did not dissuade Speaker Ghani though. As if to reinforce the opposition’s accusations of ignoring them, he skipped the entire question and answer session.

He started with reading out the K-P Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2020, which had been introduced in the house by K-P Law Minister Sultan Muhammad Khan.

The law was passed with a majority without referring it to the relevant standing committee as the opposition kept up with its protest.

At this, Ghani traded some harsh words with some opposition members. It prompted the speaker to warn the opposition members on using what he termed was “unparliamentary language”.

The Special Assistant to the Chief Minister on Local Government Kamran Khan Bangash introduced the K-P Charities (Amendment) Bill, 2020. It was referred the bill to the relevant standing committee.

The speaker then adjourned the session until Friday.

Opposition leader talks

Later, while speaking to the media outside the assembly hall, Leader of the Opposition in K-P Assembly Akram Khan Durrani said that the speaker has failed to remain neutral.

“The way he supported the treasury benches, he has tainted the role of the speaker in the assembly,” Durrani said.

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Pakistan (MMAP) lawmaker stated that the speaker waited for a sizeable number of treasury members to amass before entering the house so he could run the session.

Durrani further demanded that all those assembly staffers who were suspended for failing to protect the speaker’s chair should be reinstated.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2020.