LAHORE, Nov 26: Wednesday proved to be a day of walkouts in the Punjab Assembly, which affected the proceedings.

Hardly 20 minutes into the proceedings, the opposition pointed out the short quorum which prompted ringing of bells for the next 15 minutes to assemble the required number of MPs. The treasury’s helplessness to maintain quorum was reflected in law minister Rana Sanaullah’s remarks that the quorum issue was normally not pointed out during the question hour.

It provoked opposition leader Chaudhry Zaheeruddin Khan to claim that “it is equally against the tradition for the treasury to have an incomplete quorum so often and then asking the speaker to help meet the numbers.” The opposition leader walked out of the house for a while to protest against the government’s failure to maintain quorum, and deflecting the blame on the opposition.

The quorum crisis was embarrassing for the treasury benches on a day when the chief minister was expected to visit the house and the government had to pass the Punjab Land Revenue (amendment) Act Bill. Instead of pressing the colleagues to maintain the numbers, the law minister asked the opposition not to point it out.

A noisy Najaf Sial of PML-Q forward bloc kept shouting to seek the speaker’s permission to let him speak on the act when his name was not included in the list of speakers.

But the issue did not dampen his spirits and he kept asking the chair to let him speak, which was denied. It provoked him and his colleagues to start shouting “Go Speaker Go” for a while and then threatened walkout.

Although he did not actually walk out, he kept protesting for the rest of the proceedings.

Another walkout came when the speaker did not allow the opposition members to speak on the land revenue (amendment) act on technical grounds, though law minister Rana Sanaullah wanted to give more time to the opposition.

The day also turned a hard one for the law minister who faced a volley of tough questions from the opposition. He patiently explained the entire act and the thought-process which went into its finalisation. He was able to answer almost all questions of the opposition, carrying the day for the treasury.