LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly was on Friday at its verbal worst: personal remarks and taunts led to a heated debate between the treasury and the opposition, which soon developed into exchange of ‘abuses’.

PPP’s Hassan Murtaza started the saga all and but then, as expected, Fayyazul Hassan Chohan — former minister for information and currently holding the portfolio of the Colonies Department — fanned it.

It all started around 10:40am when the House met and was supposed to take up a Question Hour on agriculture. It was soon realised that the administrative secretary was missing and the House dropped the Question Hour, to take next item on agenda — unfinished debate on price hike from the previous day.

Defying the seriousness of the topic, Mr Murtaza, during his speech made unnecessary remarks: “The PTI people are not bothered about price hike. They cannot go back to their constituencies at the end of the day anyway because they have nothing to their credit but for 126-day mujra (dance) and bhangra (folk dance) that they exhibited on the roads of the capital.”

The PTI women folk was hardly expected to take it lying down. They did not and a pandemonium swept the House as they stood up shouting at the top of their voices, demanding an apology and making all kinds of baser remarks. Even Law Minister Raja Basharat threatened to boycott proceedings unless Mr Murtaza retracts, which he, realising the gravity of the situation, did: “My remarks were not directed towards any particular person. But even then, I withdraw my comments if they have caused discomfiture to any of my colleagues in the House.”

Ali Musa Gillani, another PPP leader, also offered apology on behalf of the party, saying that the PPP can insult no one on the basis of gender, particularly women. “After all, our own chairperson was a woman.”

And things started to cool down a bit, only till Mr Chohan took the floor and started speaking out of turn: traditionally, only the minister concerned, which in this case was Mian Aslam Iqbal, responds from the Treasury side in such debates. Responding in the kind, he said that whose own leader “sounds and looks” like people dancing on the roads, must exercise some care before pronouncing such judgments — and an orgy of absurdity started in the House. One must keep in mind that the debate was on killing inflation, resulting price hike that is making it hard for the majority of the people make both ends meet.

The Opposition now wanted an apology on the same pattern Mr Murtaza had offered but it was not forthcoming. For next 15 minutes no one knew what was happening in the House, except for loud sloganeering — including all kinds of personal and political comments — women from the opposition besieging the speaker’s dais. During the shouting match, someone suddenly started hurling “abuses” and soon a name calling match started: Mr Chohan took the charge from the Treasury side. The chair, occupied by otherwise a strict disciplinarian Dost Muhammad Mazari, looked helpless as no one was listening. It only ended when Mr Chohan was also forced to apologise and some sanity returned to the proceedings, but not before both sides fully exposed their darker sides.

The media covering the proceedings had its own issue on the day. It briefly boycotted the House for “maltreatment” of some members of the community at the hands of National Accountability Bureau staff a day earlier and walked out of the press gallery.

The House was adjourned for Monday afternoon in less than two hours without concluding debate on price hike as it was found short of time to conclude it; largely, because it had wasted much time, even 60 minutes of additional time otherwise reserved for Question Hour, in insulting each other.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2019