LAHORE, May 29: The PPP has demanded that Punjab Assembly Speaker Afzal Sahi should quit his office for barring 27 PPP and PML-N MPAs from attending the session.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, PPP leaders Khalid Ahmed Kharal and Munir Ahmed Khan said: “the speaker had failed to maintain his impartiality and bipartisanship inside the house and played a dubious role in the arrest of and police violence on the opposition MPAs and activists outside the assembly.

“The speaker has utterly failed to discharge his duties as the custodian of the house,” they said, and termed the happenings inside and outside the assembly for the last three days as a ‘conspiracy against democracy’.

The conference was organized after a meeting of the Lahore PPP at the residence of Khalid Kharal. The meeting condemned the police action on the PPP women leaders and activists and declared that the ruling party had written a ‘black chapter in the history of the provincial assembly by adopting a resolution in support of a president in military uniform’.

“The adoption of the resolution (in favour of Gen Musharraf) by the ruling party is a clear indication of its being an undemocratic and fascist organization. Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and his party are trying to prove themselves more loyal to the king than the king himself,” they said.

The PPP also denounced police violence on the journalists, and said it would observe black day across the Punjab on Saturday against the undemocratic actions of the government.