LAHORE, June 8: Opposition parties in the Punjab Assembly boycotted the Business Advisory Committee meeting held here on Wednesday to discuss duration and other matters of the budget session starting on Thursday (today).

It is the first time since the existing house came into being that the opposition parties— the PPP, the PML-N and the MMA — had boycotted the committee.

Qasim Zia, Rana Sanaullah and Asghar Gujjar, the parliamentary leaders the three opposition parties, held an informal meeting and unanimously decided to stay away from the committee.

The body traditionally meets before every session to determine a common strategy to run the house, accommodating the treasury and the opposition.

The Rana said the boycott was aimed at protesting against the speaker’s refusal to accept them as parliamentary leaders of their respective parties.

The committee’s meeting, chaired by Speaker Chaudhry Muhammad Afzal Sahi, was attended by ministers Muhammad Basharat Raja, Chaudhry Zaheeruddin and Arshad Lodhi, parliamentary secretaries Abdullah Yousuf and Muhammad Ahmad Khan, MMA MPA Muhammad Shaukat and assembly secretary Saeed Ahmad.

A press release issued by the assembly secretariat said the meeting decided all matters relating to the budget session.

It would not say why opposition leader Qasim Zia and PML-N and MMA parliamentary leaders, Rana Sanaullah and Asghar Gujjar, did not attend the meeting.