ISLAMABAD, Feb 16: It was a day of opposition in the National Assembly when Nabil Gabol of the People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) got the first opportunity to preside over the session marked by walkouts by both treasury and opposition benches on different issues.
Mr Gabol, who became the presiding officer in the absence of the speaker, deputy speaker and other members of the panel, provided full opportunity to the opposition members to speak on points of order and allowed them to raise any issue they wanted, prompting protests by some of the treasury members.
The Friday's session of the National Assembly, which had passed record number of four bills on Thursday, was again adjourned without taking any item of the 28-point agenda due to lack of quorum, pointed out by PPP’s Zulfiqar Gondal after walkout of all the opposition members.
During the proceedings, some of the ministers received scathing remarks from the chair.
During the question hour, Mr Gabol stated several times that the ministers did not take the parliament seriously and did not attend the sessions regularly.
Earlier, speaking on points of order, Dr Azra Fazal and Raja Pervez Ashraf of the PPP condemned the government for alleged victimisation of the opposition members.
Dr Azra staged the walkout saying that the police was not registering the case against a Sindh minister on her complaint.
Mr Ashraf alleged that a provincial minister directly fired on the vehicle of Dr Azra, who happened to be the sister-in-law of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, then six party workers were brutally murdered in Attock and recently party's information secretary Sherry Rehman had been attacked in Karachi.
Mr Ashraf said the opposition found no one from the government side to respond to their allegations.
"Who will arrest the provincial minister? There is no government in Sindh. The life and property of the people are not safe in the province," he added.
"We will not sit in the house and boycott the proceedings," said Mr Ashraf before staging the walkout with other PPP members.
In response to Mr Ashraf's remarks that Dr Azra was the sister-in-law of Ms Bhutto, the state minister for interior while referred to the murder of Murtaza Bhutto and said in this country even the brother of a sitting prime minister was murdered.
Mr Gabol, however, stopped the minister from speaking further, saying that it was not a proper reply.
Sher Mohammad Baloch of the PPP condemned the government's economic policies.
Mr Gabol also provided floor to members of the MMA who mostly criticised the government's policy of joining hands with the US in its war against terrorism.
