Punjab Assembly: Session prorogued amidst petty bickering

Agenda of opposition-requisitioned session not addressed.

LAHORE:

The 45th session of the Punjab Assembly was prorogued indefinitely on Tuesday as it descended into petty bickering, without the agenda of the session being addressed.

The session had been requisitioned by the opposition to discuss the “torture” of Deputy Opposition Leader Shaukat Basra by the police at a protest by the Young Doctors Association on February 11.

The session began three hours late at 6pm and the squabbling over the agenda of the house began almost immediately. Parliamentary Secretary Tahir Khalil Sindhu of the PML-N stood on a point of order to demand that Interior Minister Rehman Malik apologise to the Punjab for alleging that the provincial government had a connection with militant outfit Laskhar-i-Jhangvi, which is believed responsible for bomb blasts targeting the Hazara community in Quetta.

Sindhu used various derogatory terms to describe Malik, causing uproar on the opposition benches. Though Speaker Rana Iqbal Khan ordered the remarks to be expunged from the record, the opposition members were not calmed. Within nine minutes of the start, he had ordered a 30-minute adjournment.

The session resumed with question hour regarding the Higher Education Department. After two questions, opposition members stood to demand that they be allowed to speak on the issue the session was called for.

The speaker allowed PPP’s Syed Hassan Murtaza to speak. He demanded that Gulberg SP Malik Owais be suspended for the violence used against Basra. Else, a house committee should be formed to look at the FIRs lodged by both sides, he said. The speaker turned down his repeated requests to form a committee.

Ashraf Sohna of the PPP demanded that Law Minister Rana Sanaullah apologise to Basra in the house on behalf of the Punjab government. His request was also rejected.

Dr Ghazala Raza Rana of the PML-N sought to speak on a point of order, but the speaker did not listen, so she began shouting criticism at the opposition benches from where she stood.

Basra suggested that she needed a “mental doctor”. The treasury members rose up in outrage and demanded he apologise. The speaker intervened and sought a pardon on Basra’s behalf.

Sheikh Alauddin of the Unification Bloc stood to lament that millions of rupees had been spent on arranging an assembly session, but not a single serious topic had been discussed yet.

The opposition benches, meanwhile, continued pressing the speaker to ask the law minister to apologise to Basra. Alauddin later pointed out the quorum, which was lacking, and the session was prorogued indefinitely.

Outside the assembly

Opposition Leader Raja Riaz of the PPP brought a marching band to the assembly building earlier in the day, to celebrate, he said, the handover of Gwadar port to China and President Asif Ali Zardari’s trip to Iran to sign a gas pipeline deal.

Addressing reporters, Law Minister Sanaullah said that rather than dancing in celebration, the PPP should be mourning its poor performance during its five years as head of the federal government.

He said that Interior Minister Malik was a foreign agent sent to cause rifts among the provinces. He said that if all the money the federal government had stolen in corrupt practices over the last five years were returned, the country would be able to pay off its power and fuel bills.

Sanuallah said that instead of making false accusations against the Punjab government, the federal government should present evidence of wrongdoing by Ahmed Ludhianvi and Malik Ishaq of Ahl-i-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, formerly known as Sipah-i-Sahaba. If they produced the evidence, the minister said, he would personally order both of them to be arrested. He said that Rehman Malik had repeatedly accused Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed of terrorism, but had not been able to get him convicted in a court of law.

Sanaullah, who has been accused of links with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, said that the Punjab government had no connection with banned groups and that it condemned terrorism.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2013.