PPP parliamentarian rebuffs woman MNA’s accusations

Agha Rafiullah laments National Assembly’s procedure for following such requests

ISLAMABAD:

Lamenting the modus operandi for ensuring lower house decorum, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Agha Rafiullah on Friday rejected a fellow woman parliamentarian’s accusations of using insulting words for her during a session of the assembly on February 2. 

Ruling party MNA Begum Shaheen Saifullah Toru had filed a written complaint to NA Speaker Asad Qaiser against the PPP MP for making alleged derogatory remarks during house proceedings.

The letter reads, during the Feb 2 NA session Rafiullah showed “behaviour, completely unbecoming” of an MNA.

“Besides uttering insulting words, he, by taking advantage of his masculinity, attempted to demean a female but equal in a status colleague,” it reads. 

The PTI lawmaker, who hails from Mardan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, had claimed that such accusations could be verified by video footage and other parliamentarians. 

On the request, Speaker Qaiser on Thursday directed the NA Secretariat to seek an explanation from Rafiullah and asked the MNA to explain his position on the allegations levelled against him within seven days – making the PPP MP the fourth MPA in the recent time to be given a notice.

Days after lawmakers scuffled in the lower house of parliament, Qaiser had issued notices to PML-N’s Chaudhry Hamid Hameed, PPP’s Syed Naveed Qamar and PTI’s Attaullah, seeking an explanation from them for violating the decorum of the house. 

The PPP parliamentarian in his reply rejected the allegations and expressed his concerns over the procedure followed by the house on such a development. 

“I completely reject the self-explanatory allegations levelled by the MNA [Begum Shaheen Saifullah]. I from bottom of my heart respect all lawmakers and give women more respect,” reads Rafiullah’s reply. 

He contended that it would have been appropriate if the assembly had thoroughly investigated and reviewed the matter in view of facts before sending him a letter. “Sending such a letter to me without any investigation and fact is inappropriate,” he said. 

To Shaheen’s claim of checking the video footage, the PPP lawmaker questioned whether the lower house verified such an assertion from Feb 4’s video recording. He added that the letter does not explicitly state with whom woman MNA he maintained such a behaviour. 

He lamented that the NA gave him seven days to express his position, saying that under what rules an MNA is given a week to explain any matter.

“However, it’s a reality that even government employees of Grade 1 are given 15-30 days for explanation under the government regulations,” he said. 

Rafiullah, who is from Karachi, alleged that while reviewing the complaint attached with the letter it seems that something deliberately omitted from it.

“I want to know who, the authorised officer, added their opinion [in the complaint] and whether they allowed doing so,” he added, alleging that the letter reads if it was written without the approval of the NA speaker. 

On sending Shaheen’s letter to his party and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, he said such a move is “synonymous with damaging” his and the party’s privilege. Rafiullah was of the view that sending the letter in such a way without proper investigation “gives the impression that the NA and its secretariat is of the ruling party [PTI]”. 

The PPP lawmaker added that he reserved his right for any act on letters sent without investigation or facts.