LAHORE: It was a turbulent day for Punjab Assembly on Thursday; quorum was pointed out four times and found missing twice, the opposition staged a 10-minute walkout and the house could not complete its agenda due to the numbers game.

The house started its proceedings after a delay of 48 minutes with only 14 members in the session. First lack of quorum was pointed at 12.32pm but it was found complete. Within 50 minutes, another finger was raised by a PTI member but the count found the required strength.

The PTI pointed out lack of numerical strength at 2pm yet again, the treasury lost the numbers this time and proceedings remained suspended for next one hour before the house met again and still could not gain the required numbers. Finally, at around 4pm, the quorum was pointed out for the last time and the house was adjourned for Friday morning (today).

Agenda incomplete due to quorum woes

The JIT report on Model Town incident, which was released a day earlier, caused an uproar in the house when opposition leader Mian Mahmoodur Rashid stood on a point of order to lambast the report and accused the government of managing a clean chit for itself.

Terming the report “shameful,” he demanded that earlier report by Justice Baqir Najfi’s judicial commission, which held the government responsible for the killing of 14 people, be made public. His speech attracted strong and noisy protest by the treasury members, which was met by sloganeering by the opposition as well.

During the protest, Zaeem Qadri of the PML-N advised those disagreeing with the JIT report to take legal course instead of taking political mileage out of it.

“Those now criticising the report, were not available during the course of investigation,” he asserted.

The opposition, however, staged a walkout against what it called one-sided report and one of its member, Ahsan Riaz Fatyana, pointed out quorum on his way out, which was found missing. The opposition, however, returned after 10 minutes of walkout but only to point out quorum yet again and disrupt the official business.

As the house met, it passed the Punjab Overseas Pakistanis Commission (Amendment) Bill 2015. The law minister presented the Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi Khan, (Amendment) Ordinance 2015 and introduced the University of Okara Bill 2015. But the house could not take up the Fatima Jinnah Medical University Lahore Bill 2015, the University of Jhang Bill 2015 and University of Sahiwal Bill 2015 despite being on the agenda because of quorum crisis, which forced adjournment of the house till 9am on Friday morning.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2015

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