LAHORE: Had it not been for passage of the Punjab Commission on Status of Women Bill and ‘guest appearance’ of the chief minister for second consecutive day, a rarity in itself, it was a lost day for the Punjab Assembly by any stretch of imagination.
The government had three bills on the agenda but it could get through only one and that too after herding members back to the house after losing quorum right in the middle of legislation.
The assembly lost numerical sustenance as soon as the chief minister left the house.
The PTI was quick to point out the loss, and it was barely recovered after five minutes of ringing of bells.
Its disinterested parliamentary secretary drew ire of not only opposition members but the chair as well, as he failed to satisfy the house during the question hour.
As if all this was not enough, out of around 10 adjournment motions, the treasury had no answers for seven, and two missing members got their motions disposed of; the parliamentary secretary for law had answer for only one.
Problems for the treasury started right from the beginning, when the house met almost 75 minutes late than scheduled time of 10am, when ill-prepared parliamentary secretary failed to effectively respond during the question hour.
Even the help of chair could not rescue him from the frontal and incisive attacks from Aamer Sultan Cheema of the PML-Q and Awais Akhter Moakal of the PTI.
To make the matter worse for himself, the secretary kept talking to his colleagues instead of understanding the questions and kept perfunctorily responding.
Even the speaker had to admonish him and his colleagues: “Please be attentive to questions instead of exchanging banters.”
The house took up 10 adjournment motions related to establishing Bone Marrow Centre in Children’s Hospital (Lahore), theft of wood from official forests, car snatching, LDA issues, the practice of dowry, sale of substandard cooking oil, non-availability of facilities in schools, waiving off fine imposed on company providing laptops for the chief minister scheme and efficiency of Punjab Board of Technical Education.
Only one was responded to, and seven were kept pending because of missing answers.
The hustle bustle increased when Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif made his short appearance (for about 40 minutes) in the house at around 2pm.
The strength of the house increased to around 150 members as the house debated the bill and treasury rejected all amendments one by one moved by the opposition.
It prompted the opposition to withdraw the rest of the amendments, leading to quick adoption of the bill.
However, the catch came when the chief minister left the house in the middle of legislation and with him left almost 100 members of the treasury. The PTI was quick to pounce on the situation and pointed out the lack of quorum.
The chair ordered ringing of the bells for five minutes, allowing the treasury and bureaucratic machinery to go into frantic search for members.
It mercifully collected enough members to run the house till passage of the bill, which was by then only 10 minutes away.
However, sensing trouble, the treasury dropped other two bills (Punjab Shops and Establishment Bill and Punjab Payment of Wages), which were part of the day’s agenda but never came up for discussion.
