QUETTA: Opposition members of the Balochistan Assembly staged a walkout from the house on Friday in protest against withdrawal of his own privilege motion by provincial Public Accounts Committee chairman Abdul Majeed Achakzai against remarks of Home and Provincial Disaster Management Authority Minister Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti.

Mr Achakzai moved the privilege motion and said that Mr Bugti had breached his privilege with his remarks against him, but Minister Rehmat Baloch intervened and asked Mr Achakzai to withdraw his motion and resolve the matter by sitting with the home minister in the speaker’s chamber.

This angered opposition leader Maulana Abdul Wasey who wanted to speak on the motion, but the parliamentary leader of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal, said that there was no need now to speak on the motion as Mr Achakzai had withdrawn it.

Protests against the withdrawal of privilege motion by the chairman of provincial Public Accounts Committee

But Maulana Wasey said that the privilege motion had been moved in the house and now he would speak on the performance of the government.

“We tolerated a lot, but now enough is enough and we will speak,” Maulana Wasey said, adding that the motion had now become the property of the house and it could not be withdrawn by the mover.

He said that ministers and members of treasury benches had been levelling allegations against one another, but they wanted the opposition to stay quiet on the issue.

Interrupting Maulana Wasey, Mr Achakzai said that the opposition leader could not speak on the subject now as he had withdrawn his privilege motion with the permission of the house.

On this, Maulana Wasey and other members of the JUI-F staged the walkout from the assembly.

House Speaker Raheela Hameed Khan Durrani referred another privilege motion to the privilege committee of the house.

The motion was moved by Education Minister Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal against former additional chief secretary Nasibullah Bazai, saying that he had mentioned his name in a letter he had written to the chief minister and levelled allegations against him about MPAs’ funds.

Published in Dawn January 21st, 2017