ISLAMABAD, Sept 21: The Acting Senate Chairman, Khalilur Rehman, tried to pacify angry senators from the treasury and the opposition benches on more than one occasion on Tuesday by using light-hearted humour in a tense atmosphere.

The acting chairman asked the senators not to use phrases representative of "animals, crockery or utensils" during their speeches. He also expunged all the unparliamentary words or expressions used by senators from both sides in the upper house.

At one point, when the opposition directed a number of cat calls against the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi, for changing his political loyalties, the acting chairman said, "Let's not get into utensils and crockery."

When Asfandyar Wali made a remark in response to one directed against him by Dr Sher Afgan, the acting chairman told the senators, "don't discuss animals in the House." Trying to cool down Dr Sher Afgan, the acting chairman said, "Dr sahab! I want to run the House. You are equally guilty. Why do you respond to him?"

The acting chairman and parliamentary leader of the Democratic Alliance in the Senate, Raza Rabbani, had an interesting light hearted exchange on the phrase "brushing under the rug," when the House met after a brief adjournment to cool down tempers on both sides.

The acting chairman, while responding to Senator Rabbani, said he was not trying to avoid the issues. When Senator Rabbani said the chairman was trying to brush the issues under the rug, Mr Rehman said, "there is no rug here."

At this, Mr Rabbani pointed towards the carpet on the floor of the house and said there was a big rug. The acting chairman agreed with Mr Rabbani and said he would take up the issue raised by the senator later.

When Prof Khursheed Ahmed and Senator Muhim Khan Baloch invited the attention of the chairman towards the attitude which, they said, hurt the parliamentary traditions, the acting chairman said he would discuss the unruly behaviour with the government and the opposition after the tempers had cooled down.

When the Law Minister, Wasi Zafar, started his speech by addressing the chair as "Mr Speaker," Khalilur Rehman immediately corrected the minister and asked him to address the chair as "Chairman."

After the tempers had cooled down, Senator Nisar Memon from the treasury back benches spoke on the need for the House to clear its backlog of pending legislative business. On Tuesday, the Senate had 50 items on the agenda and could not complete even five of them till the time it was adjourned to meet again on Thursday evening.