LAHORE: Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan barred 11 opposition members from attending the next 15 sittings of the house for resorting to “rowdyism” during the speech of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz in the house on Friday.

An annoyed speaker also put off the discussion on supplementary budget for Saturday, contrary to the agreed schedule.

The suspended MPAs belonging to the PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council are: Zulfikar Ali, Shehbaz Ahmed, Muhammad Atif, Tayyab Rashid, Imtiaz Mahmood, Hafiz Farhat Abbas, Ejaz Shafi, Rana Aurangzeb, Shoaib Amir, Osama Asghar Ali Gujjar and Asad Abbas.

They had used non-parliamentary and abusive language against the chief minister when she was recounting the achievements of her first 100-day rule in the province on the conclusion of the budget approval process.

Punjab Information Minister Azma Bukhari told the media outside the assembly that if the speaker didn’t act against the opposition’s rowdyism, the treasury would decide its own line of action.

She said the treasury members had been tolerating personal attacks and use of abusive language against their leadership by the opposition for the last four months. “But enough is enough. Now the opposition will be paid back in the same coin. If they will talk of Maryam’s papa, then we’ll definitely talk of Tyrian’s papa.”

Earlier, CM Maryam recounted her government’s achievements in the fields of education, health, agriculture, price control, etc. She said her government presented the biggest budget in the history of Punjab. Responding to slogans by the opposition benches, she urged them to sit down quietly instead of exhausting their throats.

“The opposition members are my brothers and sisters. I know that a large number of them are patriotic Pakistanis… I know they (the opposition) are under pressure because they have nothing to say [about their government’s performance].”

She said the opposition has been using abusive language, raising slogans and making noise since day one and, God willing, she will defeat them with performance.

She said that earlier Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif had set high standards as chief ministers and she had to meet these standards. Demanding that the opposition’s 100-day performance should also be shown here, she recalled that the PTI, when in power, had been taking revenge, setting new records of ‘incompetence’.

Denying that the PML-N was behind any victimisation of the incarcerated PTI leadership, Maryam said: “The PTI founder has been offered the facilities not available to other thieves and criminals [in jail].”

In the meantime, the opposition MPAs tore copies of the agenda and shouted “shame, shame” slogans, to which Maryam Nawaz reacted strongly, saying they should have been ashamed when they were attacking their country and when they were plundering Tosha Khana.

Education minister Rana Sikandar Hayat waved a wristwatch in the house as a taunt about the PTI founder’s involvement in selling a costly wristwatch gifted to him by a Gulf state.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2024