KARACHI, June 20: Treasury benches in the Sindh Assembly on Monday hurriedly adopted all 54 demands for grants of supplementary expenditure for the year 2004-05 ignoring the opposition’s protest against the chief minister’s remarks. All 169 cut motions submitted by the opposition were rejected as no mover responded to the call from the chair when four of the motions were taken up, one after the other, amid an uproar.

As the pandemonium intensified, Finance Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad clubbed together 50 (from 5th to 54th) remaining demands, which were later adopted by majority vote.

Members of the joint opposition who had converged on the speaker’s desk, kept raising slogans but failed to stop the process as the treasury benches adopted all the demands, to the tune of over Rs26 billion, with in 25 minutes. The chair then adjourned the session for the day.

The proceedings, chaired by Mohammad Hussain, a member of the panel of chairmen, had started at 11.20am with recitation from Holy Quran and Naat.

Leader of the Opposition Nisar Ahmed Khuhro soon afterwards raised a point of order but Law Minister Iftikhar Chaudhry immediately intervened and drew the chair’s attention that the rules of business did not allow points of order during a budget session. However, the chair told the minister to let Mr Khuhro tell the house about his point of order.

Mr Khuhro passed some remarks against the chief minister and had hardly made a reference to the latter’s statement during the Saturday session, when almost all the treasury members stood up in protest against Mr Khuhro’s remarks. The opposition members responded swiftly in the same manner and all of them started raising slogans. The bout led to a complete chaos in the house.

The chair expunged Mr Khuhro’s remarks against the chief minister and ruled his point of order ‘out of order’. Announcing commencement of question hour, the chair asked members to put the first question.

In the absence of the questioner, Mr Ayaz Soomro, Mr Khuhro asked the first question on his behalf but again started accusing the chief minister of being corrupt. This triggered off a series of allegations and counter-allegations involving members from the two sides.

Amid the persistent rumpus, the chair disposed of the question hour within 10 minutes during which question numbers were called and without any response from the opposition as the questioners, the opposition members, continued to raise slogans against the chief minister and his government.

Soon after the question hour, the chair took up demands for grants of supplementary expenditure and all of them were declared adopted, though by the treasury benches.

He regretted the attitude adopted by opposition members in the Monday session when they used unparliamentary language and raised slogans against the chief minister.

The finance minister, accompanied by other ministers, Sardar Nadir Akmal Leghari, Syed Ali Bakhsh Shah, Irfanullah Marwat, Syed Shoaib Bokhari, Iftikhar Ahmad Chaudhry and Mustafa Kamal, was addressing a press conference in the chamber of the leader of the house in the assembly building soon after the day’s proceedings.

“We were fully prepared to respond to all 169 cut motions tabled by the opposition against 54 charged expenditures, but opposition leader Nisar Ahmad Khuhro and other opposition members, even before the questions hour, rose from their seats and on a point of order demanded right to speak on the chief minister’s remarks he had made during the Saturday deliberations.”

He maintained that since the rules of business did not allow any issue other than the budget to be taken up during the budget session, the chair ruled their point of order out of order and announced commencement of the questions hour. A member of the penal of chairmen, Mohammad Hussain, was presiding over the session at that time. The chair’s ruling stirred up a pandemonium in the house, he added.

The finance minister said the chaos continued during the question hour as opposition members kept raising slogans and using unparliamentarily language against the chief minister.

At one stage, the chair allowed Makhdoom Jameeluz Zaman to make a statement provided he could persuade opposition members to refrain from creating disorder. However, the minister said, no one from the opposition benches appeared ready.

After the questions hour, he added, the first charged demand was taken up for consideration on which 36 cut motions were moved, but as no mover came forward, the demand was adopted. In the same manner, the next three demands were adopted.

“When the uproar intensified, we moved adopted all demands, from 5th to 54th, after clubbing them together by a majority vote,” the finance minister said, adding: “When cut motions are moved, the house cannot be adjourned on any account until all of these are disposed of.”

From the very beginning, it had been observed that the opposition was not interested in pursuing the cut motions, Syed Sardar Ahmad claimed.

Law Minister Iftikhar Chaudhry told journalists that the cut motions had no legal significance as none of them had been moved on the floor of the house.

Planning Minister Shoaib Bokhari was of the view that by creating the rumpus, the opposition was trying to force the treasury benches to commit the mistake of getting the session adjourned so that the opposition could demand holding of a fresh session. The chair, however, did not fall in their trap, he added.

Irrigation Minister Sardar Nadir Akmal Leghari said that it was for the first time that all cut motions submitted by the opposition were dealt in a professional manner and replied in detail in a book form.

Mines Minister Irfanullah Khan Marwat maintained that whatever the chief minister’s remarks, they were uttered on the floor of the house. The treasury benches had patiently heard whatever the opposition had said in the house, “even they called us Lotas, but we did not make it an issue.”

The minister advised the opposition that if it wanted to level any allegation against any minister, it should feel free to do so. “While they want us to exercise patience, they must do the same and keep in mind that the chief minister, after all, is an elected member, as well as leader, of this house,” he stressed, adding that they should not have boycotted his speech.