LAHORE, June 24: Law and Local Government Minister Raja Basharat on Friday rejected the opposition’s demand that the ruling party take back its resolution and the Punjab Assembly speaker his ruling whereby the deputy opposition leader was expelled from the house for using unparliamentary language.

“Their demands are illegal and irrelevant,” said the minister while talking to Dawn.

Raja Basharat said the assembly was the right forum to discuss the legality, the morality or the justification of the resolution and the ruling. But, he regretted, members on the opposition benches had lost the opportunity by creating a disorder in the house.

He said whatever had been done by the assembly during its session was legal and could not be called into question. The ruling party fully supported the speaker’s ruling, he said.

He said now that the session had been prorogued, it was not possible for the ruling party even to consider the demands of the opposition legislators. “It’s a story of the past. We’ll decide our future strategy at the time of the next assembly session”.

He ruled out the possibility of the government agreeing to reopen the chapter ever in future.

He alleged that the leaders of the PPP and the PML-N worked according to the instructions given by their exiled leaders. In the house, he said, the opposition legislators did what they had been asked by their exiled leaders to do. And now that the session had been prorogued they had been given fresh instructions and it was for this reason that they had come up with new demands, the minister said.

The minister said the speaker had announced a committee for a better relationship between the government and the opposition. But, he said, it was regrettable that the opposition had not taken part in the meetings for which he had made all arrangements.

The opposition parties, Raja Basharat said, must bear in mind that they were a minority, unable to dictate the ruling party its terms.

He said despite the desire to have a good relationship with the opposition, the PML would not like the minority opposition to dictate to the majority.