ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties want National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to seek direct intervention of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to defuse the prevailing tense political situation, indicating that they might boycott parliament proceedings if ministers continued their “assault” on them.

This was conveyed to speaker by the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah and Vice Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Shah Mehmood Qureshi during separate telephonic conversations with him.

Later talking to Dawn, Mr Qureshi said he had requested the speaker to ask the prime minister if the ministers were issuing threatening statements as part of the ruling party’s policy or it was their individual act. He said if the ministers were doing it under a plan then the speaker could do nothing and the opposition could consider the option of staying away from the assembly, which would at least help maintain the decorum of the parliament at least.

Mr Qureshi said the opposition parties had convened their joint meeting on Monday (tomorrow) before beginning of the National Assembly session to devise future strategy. He said he personally believed that attending the assembly session would be a futile exercise if the speaker could not prevent the ministers from spoiling the environment. The opposition parties, he said, would decide in the meeting whether they should participate in the proceedings without seeking any guarantee or they should stay away.

Mr Qureshi said the speaker had assured him that he would take up the matter with the prime minister. “The speaker also expressed displeasure and shock over Thursday’s incident in which members from treasury and opposition benches scuffled during the assembly proceedings.”

Replying to a question, the PTI leader said he had told the speaker that Thursday’s incident happened after the treasury members crossed the aisle, which was evident from the fact that the scuffle took place in front of the opposition’s benches. He alleged that the situation turned ugly when Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi came to their side in an “aggressive mood and posture”.

On the one hand, he said, the speaker and the opposition were trying to amicably resolve the issue and, on the other, the ministers, particularly Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif and his deputy Abid Sher Ali, were making threatening statements against the PTI members.

When contacted, Khurshid Shah said he had talked to the speaker by telephone and asked him to stop the ministers from using “foul language” against the opposition members as it could further rise political temperature.

Mr Shah said he had approached the speaker after receiving a telephone call from Mr Qureshi, who complained about the use of filthy language by certain ministers in their media talk and on social media on Saturday.

Mr Shah, who was talking from his hometown Sukkur, said the speaker had made the phone call to Mr Qureshi at his request. He said the PTI leader had particularly drawn his attention to a “threatening statement” of Abid Sher Ali on Twitter.

Responding to a tweet of Mr Qureshi, the minister has stated: “You and (PTI Chief) Imran (Khan) would be on my radar in NA session. Get ready to face PML-N lions.”

Later, the minister through another tweet explained the term “radar” stating that “will show them in real”.

Mr Qureshi had said in his tweet: “PML-N’s behaviour in NA reflects their lack of respect for free speech and parliamentary norms. Nothing can deter PTI from bringing truth to the people of Pakistan.”

The opposition leader said basically it was the responsibility of the government to defuse the situation as “fighting and abuses” always went in favour of the opposition parties. He said the government should know that newspaper headlines about disturbance in the parliament were always seen as failure on the part of the government to maintain the decorum of the house.

Mr Shah expressed the hope that the government would realise the gravity of the situation and act wisely.

He said he might not be able to attend Monday’s session because of a hairline fracture in his leg due to a minor accident and, therefore, he had asked parliamentary leader of his Pakistan Peoples Party Syed Naveed Qamar to hold a meeting of the opposition parties to devise a joint strategy for the assembly session.

The opposition leader regretted Thursday’s incident in the parliament and said the speaker would have to take “action” against those responsible for it to prevent recurring of such an incident.

Asked what action the speaker should take and against whom, Mr Shah said the speaker should at least issue a “show cause notice or a warning”.

Published in Dawn January 29th, 2017