KARACHI: Speaker Siraj Durrani on Thursday called it a “sad day” in Sindh Assembly’s history when a lawmaker was “attacked” by fellow members after harsh personal remarks were made by the leader of the opposition, overtly targeting the chair.

It was a raucous day that initially mirrored the previous two sittings of the current session when the three large parties on the opposition benches went on to create hullaballoo mainly on the provincial government’s refusal to make the opposition leader as head of the Public Accounts Committee of Sindh.

However, the proceedings turned graver on Thursday when Leader of the Opposition Firdous Shamim Naqvi, while protesting against, what he called, lesser representation given to the major opposition parties on the business advisory council, referred to some reports broadcast in a section of the electronic media asking how “that much amount of undeclared money and jewellery was found in your lockers”.

Mr Naqvi’s words led everyone on the treasury benches to rise in their seats.

‘The whole world knows how much a speaker is respected here’

Everyone on the opposition benches, barring three members belonging to the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, stood up chanting slogans against the government.

The opposition leader’s words appeared to hurt Speaker Durrani, who said what was being claimed as the undeclared jewellery from his lockers had belonged to his family for more than a century and was duly declared in his tax documents.

“I know how much you respect me, my office. The whole world knows how much a speaker is respected here,” said the speaker.

Ministers Mukesh Chawla and Imtiaz Shaikh and several other members condemned the words spoken by the opposition leader saying such jargon and choice of words by Mr Naqvi was totally unacceptable.

Despite the ruckus, the speaker tried to maintain his composure when he read out the relevant laws and asked the opposition leader where the law made it mandatory to offer a certain ratio of representation in the business body.

While the chair had already announced commencement of the Question Hour, no question was being allowed by the opposition to be officially asked on the floor.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Chawla asked the chair to begin the Question Hour and not to allow the opposition to hold the house “hostage”.

Mr Durrani said he had never taken dictation from anyone all his life except Almighty Allah.

“You have made personal attacks on me, I cannot do anything, but I leave it to Allah to do justice. This house will not run on your dictation,” he said.

The chair also asked Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani to discuss the issue, which the opposition had raised, with the opposition leader.

Mr Ghani, however, said if the opposition continued to protest like that and disrupted the house, the treasury would go for elections on all committees as was provided in the assembly rules and that would reduce the opposition’s share that the government had promised.

He made it clear again that the government would not hand the PAC to the opposition.

Meanwhile, the speaker asked Grand Democratic Alliance’s Arif Jatoi to ask his question; but, before that the opposition leader had led his colleagues to gather in front of the chair and Mr Jatoi did not respond to the speaker.

The chair kept announcing the serial numbers of the questions included in the agenda. All those questions had been furnished by opposition members; thus, none of them formally demanded that Cooperative Minister Bari Pitafi elaborate on his written answers.

Similarly, the segment of calling-attention notices got completed as briskly as none of the six opposition members, who had given those notices, raised them.

Meanwhile, the opposition members kept chanting slogans in front of the chair.

MMA lawmaker ‘manhandled’

Things, however, turned uglier when the turn of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Abdul Rasheed came to table his privilege motion.

Mr Rasheed had filed his motion against the opposition leader, who, according to him, called him and members belonging to the TLP as ‘baghal bachcha’ [proxies] of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and that had deeply breached his privilege.

Mr Rasheed was in the middle of qualifying his motion, when, first Mohammad Hussain of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan went towards the former and chanted anti-government slogans on the MMA lawmaker’s microphone.

Meanwhile, a number of lawmakers belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf came dangerously close to Mr Rasheed and they were witnessed from the galleries as manhandling him.

Dozens of members on the treasury benches rushed towards the scene and pushed the opposition members away and surrounded the MMA member.

Those scenes led the speaker to say: “No badmashi [hooliganism] will be allowed in the house. It doesn’t hurt you that you are beating your own colleagues over here?”

Meanwhile, Mr Rasheed kept speaking. He termed the opposition leader’s attitude as highly questionable and prejudiced and demanded that a committee be formed to investigate the issue.

He said members of the MQM-P and the GDA had endured that behaviour and even certain members in the PTI were not happy with their own opposition leader. He complained that no one from the TLP and the sole MMA member was on the list given by the opposition leader for nominations on the house committees.

He said the MMA and the TLP were the “real opposition parties” while the PTI members were there only to shield their federal government.

He asked who had voted for the PPP’s Senate candidates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and who in the PTI had voted for Aitzaz Ahsan in the presidential election.

The chair sought names from the opposition on a committee to investigate the privilege motion and got no nominations. Later, a committee was formed with PPP’s Ghulam Qadir Chandio as its head, with TLP’s Mohammad Qasim and Khwaja Izharul Hasan of the MQM-P among six of its members.

The opposition members, meanwhile, started chanting slogans against the PPP leadership at which Minister Ghani said the incident of snatching a microphone from a member and attacking him was not acceptable.

“These members should be banned from attending the assembly’s sessions,” he said.

He accused the PTI leadership of being involved in “moral corruption”.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2019