LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly session on Monday saw the treasury and the opposition developing consensus on multiple legislative work.

Both the treasury and the opposition unanimously adopted amendment to the rules of procedure of the Punjab Assembly house empowering the speaker to issue production order of an MPA detained by the law enforcement agencies.

The house also adopted the Punjab Right to Public Services Bill of 2018, while two other bills - the Punjab Domestic Workers Bill of 2018 and the Punjab Prevention of Conflict of Interest Bill of 2018- were postponed by the speaker until January 21 on the request of the opposition.

Opposition Leader Hamza Shahbaz led the opposition, which of late has turned hostile towards the speaker for expelling their six members for hooliganism in the house. On Monday, they praised Speaker Pervaiz Elahi for listening to their concerns on the two deferred bills and for amending the rules to bring PML-N MPA Khawaja Salman Rafique (who is in the National Accountability Bureau’s custody in Paragon City scam) to the house.

Mr Elahi, however, asked Mr Shahbaz to also thank Chief Minister Usman Buzdar for these developments.

Mr Shahbaz said: “We are political workers and always appreciated the good work.” He said the rule of issuing production order for a detained MPA was functional in the other three provincial assemblies and now the Punjab Assembly also joined them. He requested the speaker to issue the production order of Mr Rafique.

Following the opposition’s serious concerns over the Punjab Domestic Workers Bill of 2018, the chair said there were chances of misuse of the bill if adopted without addressing certain matters.

“I suggest the treasury engage the opposition, experts and the general public before finalising the draft to be tabled in the assembly next Monday,” the speaker said.

PML-N’s MPAs Malik Ahmad, Khalil Tahir Sandhu, Azma Bokhari, Waris Kalu, Dr Mazhar Iqbal and Bilal Atta Tarar raised objections to the domestic workers bill, saying that everybody wanted the protection of the rights of the domestic workers but at the same time did not want exploitation of the new law to be used against employers.

Although Law Minister Basharat Raja argued that the bill addressed the objections of the opposition, the speaker insisted that the house should not adopt such law in a haste as it might spoil the reputation of someone if anything went wrong.

“We should welcome opposition’s suggestions as these will be fruitful for the new legislation,” the speaker said.

Former Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Iqbal took strong exception to the comments of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Mian Aslam Iqbal that he (Rana Iqbal) would run the house on the instruction of his boss Shahbaz Sharif and never accommodated the opposition in the past. Malik Ahmad asked the chair to expunge Aslam Iqbal’s comments. Earlier, the speaker expunged Azma Bokhari’s remarks calling Imran Khan “selected prime minister”.

PPP Parliamentary Leader Hasan Murtaza staged walkout for not taking the opposition on board in the Punjab Right to Public Services Bill of 2018. PTI’s Chaudhry Zaheeruddin persuaded him to end the boycott and return to the House.

Chief Minister Buzdar joined the house only for a few minutes.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2019