LAHORE: Almost the entire business of the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday was kept pending because either there was no member to initiate it or a minister to respond to it, making it a day of absences and put-offs.

As it was hard to justify the absence of so many ministers, Law Minister Raja Basharat suggested action against the missing ones. Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Mazari agreed to it. He even expressed his surprise when informed that the education and health ministers were abroad on leave. “I don’t know about it,” he said.

A resolution moved by PTI’s Uzma Kardar was supported by the opposition, and was opposed and voted out by her party colleagues.

The only matter considered seriously by the entire house was the endemic road accidents in which scores of people are losing their lives or getting injured daily on the single national highway from Kashmore to Dera Ghazi Khan.

Quorum issue mars PA proceedings, upsets law minister and deputy speaker

The issue was raised by PTI’s Sardar Owais Dareshak through a Zero Hour motion, mentioning in his polite style how the single carriageway was leading to the fatal accidents every day.

It was PPP’s Shazia Abid from Jampur who vociferously highlighted the matter in a way that appeared to have impressed all in the house. She said the single carriageway and the bypasses in the region were killing people every day. “Mothers are receiving shreds of their children whom they send to schools,” she said.

She said the PTI which came into power after playing the South Punjab card must improve the roads to stop the fatal accidents otherwise the people of Jampur who are tired of burying their dear ones every day would block the Jampur-Rajanpur stretch of the national highway and disrupt traffic from Punjab to Sindh and Balochistan.

Moved as he was along with others, the deputy speaker said the number of deaths in road accidents in the mentioned region was much more than the murders. But he sounded helpless when informed that the communication and works minister was missing. He sent Chaudhry Zaheer to bring him in but another minister Mohsin Leghari stood up to rescue the chair.

He said the national highway was a federal subject and the house could only recommend the issue to it for the needful. Agreeing, the deputy speaker asked the mover and Ms Shazia to move a joint resolution which, he said, would be passed and referred to the federal government for action. All others who spoke later on the issue were also asked to contribute to the resolution. “Please contribute all,” he said.

Earlier, the question hour, which was the first item on the agenda, finished in a few minutes because of the absence of the ministers or the questioners concerned. There were just four questions, and all were kept pending briskly.

The deputy speaker then switched to adjournment motions. Many were allowed to cover up the shortest question hour, but almost all were kept pending as either the movers or the ministers concerned were missing. When pointed out by the opposition, the law minister said it was the duty of all of his colleagues to ensure their presence in the house. “Please issue directions that all the missing ministers should attend the house at 11am tomorrow and respond to the matters concerning their departments,” he requested the chair.

Mr Mazari responded and said he would use the harshest option if any minister failed to attend the session in future. “We should take the assembly business seriously. Millions of rupees of the taxpayers’ money are spent on the session. This is not the way,” he said.

Responding to an adjournment motion moved by PTI’s Uzma Kardar highlighting Indian atrocities against the Kashmiri people, the law minister asked her to put the matter in the house through a resolution. “I had submitted a resolution and I don’t know how it became an adjournment motion,” was her reply.

The deputy speaker also kept pending eight out of 10 resolutions again because of the absence of the ministers concerned. Ms Neelam Hayat Malik did not press for her resolution seeking a ban on open sale of petrol as the law minister said it was already disallowed.

An interesting debate followed a resolution which was moved by PTI’s Uzma Kardar, seeking running of ambulances on the metro bus tracks. The ministers of her party opposed the proposal and those in the opposition supported it.

Finally, the deputy speaker shot down the resolution with the majority vote of the PTI after the mover did not agree to withdraw it on the request of the law minister.

The session was adjourned till Wednesday morning.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2019