MPAs upset as govt has no money for LG elections, but wants to tax car wash

PML-F’s Shaharyar Mahar looks comfortable during his first session as opposition leader

Agha Siraj Durrani sat in his speaker’s chair scratching his belly. Both the temperatures and tempers inside the assembly were rising as assembly members kept criticising this year’s budget.

As speaker of the House, Durrani was trying to figure out the best way to make Sardar Ahmed Pitafi cut his post-budget speech short. In the end, he decided to interrupt Pitafi and say ‘meherbani’, again and again till Pitafi, whose voice was raw with emotion and kept switching between Sindhi and Urdu, decided to sit down.

It had been decided that the MPAs who wanted to talk about the budget would be given 10 minutes - of course they spoke for much longer, some even took nearly 20 minutes.

The first person to speak from the treasury benches was MQM’s Khalid Iftikhar. When he started, it looked like he would focus on the budget cuts, taxing the dhobis and fumigators. Seven minutes later, he started talking about what he really wanted to talk about - the local government elections.

Iftikhar was furious at the fact that no money had been set aside for the LG elections but the government was ready to tax people at the car wash. “It is as if the finance department has people standing at traffic signals questioning everyone about what they do and then taxing them,” he said. “This is ridiculous.”

Sardar Pitafi spoke next and it was obvious that he was very, very angry. He felt that his constituency, Ghotki, was being ignored. His voice grew hoarse as he kept telling the speaker that all MPAs and their constituencies should be treated equally. He was quite animated and kept moving his hands, other MPAs looked confused as if trying to figure out what Pitafi was so upset about.

Durrani seemed to have lost interest half way through the session. As soon as Shehla Raza left her seat to take his, Durrani was on his way out. Raza, who runs the assembly less like a deputy speaker and more like a headmistress, kept telling MPAs that their time was up. An MQM MPA kept asking for five more minutes and asked Raza if he would get a time out.

PML-F’s Shaharyar Mahar looked very comfortable in his seat. This was the first session he attended as the leader of the opposition. PML-N’s Irfanullah Marwat sat right behind Mahar in a crisp white shalwar kameez waiting for his party members to arrive before presenting their list of budget-related grievances.

Assembly favourite, Murad Ali Shah, came to the session a bit late and sat in his regular seat. He was as always dressed to impress in a maroon suit and salmon-pink shirt.

Since most MPAs prefer to say nothing and have a perpetually bored expression on their faces, maybe the speaker should do something to make the post-budget assembly sessions a little less dry.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2014.