The Backbencher: The speaker ain’t afraid of Nilofar

Agha Siraj Durrani kept tip-toeing around several MQM and PPP MPAs to avoid an ugly confrontation between the two parties since Monday’s stormy session

Agha Siraj Durrani is not bothered about the cyclone. To those who fear Nilofar's harsh winds, he suggested that they should pack up and run to 'androon' Sindh for cover. "Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi has always saved Karachi from the Nilofars of the world," he said as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement's Iram Farooqi tried to raise the issue. "Nothing will happen to us."



Unlike Durrani, Farooqi was quite concerned about what preparations the provincial government and city administration had done to face the storm that is likely to hit Karachi on Wednesday. Durrani, kept disrupting the MPA by cracking jokes: "Aray kahan hai Nilofar, kaun hai Nilofar? Assembly mein to kisi ka naam nahi hai. [Where is Nilofar, who is Nilofar? There is no one in the assembly by that name.]"

Farooqi tried to the make the speaker take her seriously but Durrani was too busy enjoying himself. He, however, wasn't alone. MPAs from the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were trying hard to hold their laughter as the speaker kept cracking jokes at Nilofar's expense.

Maybe the tension between the PPP and MQM was too much for the speaker to handle - he had just had a rather awkward conversation with the MQM's Faisal Subzwari about the seating arrangement. It must have taken a great deal of patience on the speaker's part to stay calm and respond to an issue raised by the MQM several times.

Subzwari insisted that as per tradition, the opposition leader and leader of the treasury should sit opposite or adjacent to each other - not the way they were seated at the moment with the CM's seat in the middle and Shaharyar Mahar sitting on the speaker's extreme left. Durrani calmly tried to explain that they were trying to follow tradition but they were trying to experiment with the seating and wanted to see what would work out best.



He said that he would see what could be done as it was, after all, done at the speaker's discretion.

The speaker kept tip-toeing around several MQM and PPP MPAs to avoid an ugly confrontation between the two parties since Monday's stormy session. However, he wasn't successful as at the beginning of the session an MPA from the MQM gave the PPP a piece of her mind. Shazia Farooque was upset, and according to her fellow MPAs, she had been fuming since Monday when Sindh Information Minister accused her late husband of being a target killer.

Before the situation spiraled out of control, Khwaja Izharul Haq decided to step in and asked everyone to avoid pointing fingers as it might lead to a lot of unpleasantness.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2014.