• Comment on former military dictator goes down badly with Muttahida MPAs
• Speaker assures opposition of expunging un-parliamentary words
• Debate on Sindh budget 2024-25 continues

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Saturday witnessed a brief tense situation during the ongoing debate on budget proposals when a ruling Pakistan Peoples Party member criticised the local government system under General Pervez Musharraf regime which attracted strong reaction from the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan pushing senior parliamentarians to move in and defuse the situation.

It all started when PPP MPA from Malir Sajid Jokhio stood up on his turn to address the house while taking part in the budget debate with permission of Speaker Awais Qadir Shah.

After lauding “people’s friendly budget” presented by his party and referring to several schemes of human development which were introduced first time in the history of Sindh, he turned to respond to the criticism on his party mainly from the opposition MQM-P.

Without naming the rival party, he targeted General Musharraf for “ruining the local government institutions”.

He called it a “grave injustice” from the deceased “dictator” that he had put all institutions under the elected local government representatives in 2001 which lasted till 2010.

“It was no one else but General Musharraf who had ruined the institutions bringing them under the control of Nazims [a term then used for city mayors],” said the PPP MPA.

Before Mr Jokhio could complete his sentence, the opposition MQM-P members started shouting, thumbing desks and yelling at the ruling party MPA for his criticism at General Musharraf.

Amid growing uproar, thumbing of desks and yelling, the MQM-P members were almost inaudible. It emerged that the opposition was angry over remarks of Mr Jokhio against the deceased general.

“Why you get angry when I named General Musharraf? I am only criticising the dictator for his role and character. What this has to do with you?” asked Mr Jokhio while speaking continuously amid protest from the opposition.

As there was lots of shouting and commotion, senior PPP leader and Sindh Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah stood up to intervene and finally succeeded in cooling down MQM-P members.

At the insistence of MQM-P members, the Speaker also assured the opposition to “expunge all non-parliamentary words” of Mr Jokhio’s speech from the proceedings.

‘Feudal attitude’

Later, responding to the PPP member’s speech, Kiran Masood of MQM-P criticised the “feudal attitude” of the ruling party legislators and said that the assembly session on the crucial subject of budget didn’t reflect true seriousness from the treasury side.

“Sometime, this house gives a look of Mughal era court proceedings where the aides of the ruler only came to praise him,” she said.

The same thoughts were shared by Rehan Akram of the MQM-P who alleged that the PPP MPAs were only appeasing their leadership to get closer to them.

“The same MPAs who are pressing the budget today and calling it most revolutionary document, would be crying tomorrow that nothing is done in their constituencies,” he added. Hina Dastageer of PPP admitted that there were a few shortcomings in the budget, but under the circumstances it carried the best possible proposals and estimates.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2024