LAHORE: The proceedings of the Punjab Assembly session could not last more than 15 minutes here on Monday and it had to be postponed for another day due to the broken quorum.

Proceedings of the 41stsession, the longest one so far, began as the budget session on June 15 and the assembly secretariat (read speaker) is running it since then, though it lacked any business and ironically budget was not presented in it as the then government of Hamza Shehbaz chose to convene a separate sitting for the purpose in an adjacent building.

Soon after the recitation of some Quranic verses and Na’at on Monday, PML-N lawmaker Tahir Khalil Sindhu sought the floor from Mian Sharif, who was chairing the sitting in the absence of the speaker and deputy speaker, on a point of order.

When he was denied an opportunity to speak his mind, Mr Sindhu pointed out the short quorum in the house.

The chair ordered the ringing of bells for five minutes, giving time to the lawmakers if present in the lobbies to join the proceedings. However, the proceedings were postponed for Wednesday when the presence of a minimum of 94 lawmakers, one-fourth of the total membership of 371, could not be ensured in the house.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2022