ISLAMABAD, Aug 11: The opposition targeted Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday, asking him to resign and face criminal charges, as the National Assembly began a debate on the scrapped sale of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM).

A stinging mix of legal and political arguments by Aitzaz Ahsan of PPP-Parliamentarians opened the debate sought by opposition in the light of Supreme Court decision that annulled the PSM privatisation for having been done in “indecent haste” and in disregard of the profitability of the country’s largest industrial unit.

A comparatively weak defence of an apparently sticky position was put up by Farooq Amjad Mir of the ruling PML before the house was adjourned to meet again at 3pm on Saturday to resume what is planned to be a week-long debate on several opposition adjournment motions on the issue.

Opposition members chanted “resign, resign” while the ruling party members countered with chants of “denied, denied” whenever Mr Ahsan talked of allegations against the prime minister.

“Go back to where you came from,... no questions will be asked,” said Mr Ahsan, addressing Prime Minster Aziz, who was not present in the house. The remark referred to the past job of Mr Aziz with Citibank.

He said “acts of commission and omission” of the Privatisation Commission and the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation, headed by the prime minister, cited in the Supreme Court amounted to offences such as corruption, fraud and misuse of authority for which charges should have been brought by the NAB against the prime minister in the form of a first information report and a reference.

Mr Ahsan recalled that two former Privatisation Commission chairmen, now opposition members of the National Assembly, had been arrested and interrogated for similar but disputed allegations and a former lower house speaker, Yousaf Raza Gillani, was sentenced for giving jobs to people.

“Still if the prime minister does not resign, how he can set any political traditions,” the PPP member asked.

He advised the ruling party members to pressure Prime Minister Aziz to quit. Sticking to the PM’s office would be a conspiracy against the present National Assembly as in the past, such allegations had been exploited by presidents to dissolve assemblies even in the absence of any court judgment, he said.

Rather than defending the prime minister’s role in the PSM privatisation, Mr Mir - who apparently ended an estrangement with the ruling party as a leader of the so-called forward bloc - used most of his speech to target the conduct of the previous PPP and PML-N governments, provoking protests from opposition benches.

However, he said that the government had accepted the court’s judgment.

“We will take guidance from it,” he said about the Supreme Court ruling and added that lapses pointed out by it would be rectified in the future sale of the PSM, ordered by the newly revived inter-provincial Council of Common Interests.

Earlier, the government and the opposition failed to agree on the time for the discussion, which was decided at a meeting of the representatives of the two sides with Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain on Friday morning.