|
|
|
| June 22, 2005 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1426 |
Committee to devise strategy for PA
LAHORE, June 21: Punjab Assembly Speaker Afzal Sahi on Tuesday constituted a 12-man committee comprising members of the treasury and the opposition to devise a strategy for running the house in a better congenial atmosphere. He named Riaz Shahid and Tariq Kiani of the PPP, Mujahid Ali Shah and Malik Ibrar Ahmad of the PML-N and Asghar Gujjar and Arshad Baggu of the MMA for the body, while ministers Raja Basharat, Arshad Lodhi, Chaudhry Iqbal, Chaudhry Zaheeruddin, Saeed Akbar Niwani and Akhtar Husain Rizvi will represent the treasury.
He said he would implement whatever good decisions would be taken by the body.
The house was taking up supplementary demands for grants for 2004-05 when Mr Sahi learned about the arrival of opposition members in lobbies. He requested Mr Lodhi and Mr Iqbal to take along the Raja and bring the opposition back into the house. But Mr Baggu told reporters that the ministers did not turn up.
The opposition had on Monday announced boycott of the rest of the budget session proceedings when the chair refused to review its decision of expelling some MPAs out of the house.
The treasury members on the body formed by the speaker also did not approach the benches, though they kept waiting for the former in opposition leader Qasim Zia’s chamber even an hour and a half after the session was adjourned for Wednesday morning.
Mr Zia was angry that he had not been consulted for naming opposition members, especially of the PPP, as he was also parliamentary leader of the party.
He felt as if the chair did not want to recognize him as the parliamentary leader of his party.
He said now only those opposition members on the committee, if they decided to join it, would be acceptable to them who would be nominated by him.
Earlier, Mr Sahi clarified in the house that he did not mean humiliating the opposition MPAs by ordering them out. Had this been the objective, he would have used sergeant-at-arms.
He said he did not take action against (PML-N MPA) Dr Asad Ashraf for the latter had shown insensible attitude for the first time. He said the language used by the MPAs in the house had not been used even by union council members.
The chair disposed of 67 adjournment motions tabled by the opposition members because the movers were absent from the house. Mr Sahi did not accept parliamentary secretary for law Abdullah Yousaf’s demand that the chair should kept pending at least those motions, which had been moved by the banished MPAs.
The speaker had discretionary powers in this regard, Mr Sahi told him.
|
|
|
|
