LAHORE, Feb 6: The Punjab Assembly cannot behave in any other way but being downright frivolous; on Monday, it improved only upon its own trivial standards when Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, as promised by the Treasury, refused to grace the House and explain his (mis)handling of PIC drugs fiasco that has caused around 150 deaths.

To make the matters even more absurd, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah and the Treasury benches tried to defend the chief minister’s absence on procedural grounds; “The opposition has not formally started the debate so far, so the chief minister is bound to be around to conclude it” was the Treasury mantra till the House lost the quorum and was prorogued.

The official defence provoked the opposition into reminding the Chair and the Treasury for the next 90 minutes that CM’s behaviour was “condescending and contemptuous” towards the House, the Speaker and 80 million people of the province. “If he does not want to explain the disaster to this House, where else he owes the explanation.” If 150 deaths were not enough to break his “arrogance,” what else it would take, wondered Raja Riaz – the Leader of Opposition.

Rana Sanaullah, custodian of the House, tried to put up a brave face and said: “We stand committed that the chief minister would conclude the debate on drugs and deaths, as promised on Friday. But, the Opposition must acknowledge that on Friday it did nothing except calling members ‘lota’ or ‘handi’. What should the chief minister have come here to conclude? The Leader of Opposition should start the debate and CM would come to conclude it.”

Undeterred, the Raja stood up to tell the House and the Chair: “The Treasury has planned to prorogue the House today (Monday), when would the CM come to conclude (and what)?

The CM was hiding behind a purely procedural excuse to disregard 150 deaths, he said. “We are ready to formally start the debate if the Treasury commits to postpone proroguing of the House and the CM to drop in for concluding the debate.”

“It is tantamount to dictating the chief ministerial presence and its timing,” was the law minister’s answer. “The Opposition cannot do the both. What it needs to do is to formally start the debate, and we will take its suggestions to the CM. Only then, he (Chief Minister) himself would decide when he plans to come to the House to conclude the debate,” Rana Sanaullah insisted and added: “No one can dictate others, least of all to a chief minister.”

It is not a matter of “dictation but a promise made by the Treasury,” Raja Riaz retorted and reminded the House Asharaf Sohna of the PPP stood up to question the law minister’s logic. He said for the last 10 days, the House had been doing nothing but debating the issue because of human cost involved. “What kind of debate and its formal start was the government looking for,” he asked.

“It (the government) must come clean on the issue: if it does not want to take the House into confidence, it should let us know. If the CM does not care for the House, he should inform us. If the law minister cannot convince the CM, he should take the House into confidence. The chief ministerial refusal to come to the House can be explained by anything but a matter of procedural hiccups as the poor law minister is trying to portray,” he concluded.

Sensing that the Treasury was not ready to deliver on its promise of bringing the CM to the House, the Opposition walked out, leaving Sajida Mir (of the PPP) there to point out the quorum.

The obvious lack of quorum since the start of the proceedings was formalised once heads were counted. The chair ordered ringing of bells for five minutes and happily “prorogued the House indefinitely” once the member was found short of the required.