LAHORE, Dec 14: The Punjab government came under fire in the provincial assembly on Wednesday for allowing the use of ‘official’ machinery for projection of Maryam Safdar, daughter of Nawaz Sharif.

Maryam has in recent days inaugurated a block in the Home Economics College and an outdoor patient (OPD) ward in Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP’s) Azma Bukhari said being a political worker, she welcomed Maryam to politics. She, however, called the provision of education institutions as a political platform to Maryam as illegal, and sought a ruling from the chair over the use of state resources by a non-elected person.

Neither the chair nor Education Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman responded to her allegations.

Ms Bukhari said heads of educational institutions were being forced to invite Maryam to their functions.

Her remarks provoked the treasury which chanted slogans against PPP leaders.

Opposition leader Raja Riaz said his party was ready to arrange audience for her if the PML-N could not hold public meetings fearing its public shows paled in comparison with those of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf.

While the other PML-N members resorted to chants, MPA Zaeem Qadri was left to justify Maryam’s activities. He claimed she had gone to the institutions on the invitation of student organisations which was neither illegal nor unconstitutional.

Earlier during the Question Hour, opposition legislators took on the government for removing Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor as food minister and, contrary to the government’s claims, a considerable delay in payment to sugarcane growers.

In the absence of Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, who mostly defends his party and the government, the chair had to rescue parliamentary secretary for food Saeed Mughal.

The opposition demanded that they be informed about reasons behind the removal of the minister.

PPP’s Hasan Murtaza alleged that misappropriation in wheat procurement led to Ghafoor’s ouster. The chair urged the members to avoid blame games without evidence as the chief minister had the prerogative to select or reject a cabinet member.To a supplementary question about the composition of sugarcane cess committees, the secretary said all stakeholders were members of the bodies.

Quoting a notification by the chief minister, the PPP lawmaker said he himself was also a member of the committee but he was not taken on board though there were two sugar mills in his constituency.

The opposition and the treasury unanimously protested delay in payment of dues to growers by sugar millers.

When Saeed Mughal insisted that there were no dues pending by millers in Kasur, Sheikh Alauddin said that growers of his constituency had yet to receive their dues since 2009.

He urged the chair to form a house committee to check the parliamentary secretary’s statements and recommending action if found millers withholding payments.

MPA Sanaullah Masti Khel said that a sugar mill in his constituency in Mianwali had not paid outstanding Rs1.5 billion to the growers for the last five years. The mills started paying dues to farmers only when a case was registered against the administration and the general manager was put behind bars, he added.

The chair promised to form a committee to probe the allegation in the next meeting of Business Advisory Committee.

Mr Murtaza also criticised public servants. He said officials were treated with respect on the Punjab Assembly premises but humiliated public representatives at their offices by searching their vehicles. Zakat Minister Malik Nadeem Kamran said that charges of humiliation of MPAs at government offices were baseless. This provoked Mr Murtaza who went out of the house in protest.