ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: Since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif doesn’t come to parliament, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan oversees the treasury benches in the National Assembly, where he had a tough message for his cabinet colleagues on Thursday: Come to the house or quit.

Absenteeism on government benches has been quite striking in the present parliament, provoking opposition charges of their disinterest in debates on important issues such as on high prices on Wednesday and law and order on Thursday, forcing adjournment of the National Assembly for the second day running for lack of quorum.

However, the interior minister’s ire in the National Assembly came quite early in the day when Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had to defer a call-attention notice of five MQM members about what they called loadshedding of natural gas, because of the absence of Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, deputy minister of state Jam Kamal Khan as well as of the parliamentary secretary concerned.

“This is unacceptable,” the interior minister said after he turned around and found none of the concerned functionaries present. The Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, said he too had no instructions on the issue, drawing chants of “shame, shame” from opposition benches.

Chaudhry Nisar said that whether it be question hour or a call-attention notice, ministers must be present and do their job for which, he said, “we are paid salaries and are accountable to the house”.

They should “come to the house or vacate their seats,” the minister said, adding they could be replaced by any member of the ruling party who were more punctual in attending the house.

He said he had already taken up the matter of ministerial absenteeism twice in the cabinet and would raise it again “more forcefully”.

While telling members that the prime minister had given “clear-cut instructions” to ministers to ensure their presence in the house, Chaudhry Nisar sought help from both the speaker and house members to enforce discipline: in the shape of “sternest action” by the chair against those who defied and privilege motions against them from aggrieved lawmakers.

However, Khaqan Abbasi came to the house before it was adjourned for ‘zohar’ and responded to the MQM’s call-attention notice with the news of continuing problems in pursuing the Iran gas pipeline project due to Western sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme. The speaker said the minister had previously been in the Senate session at the same time.

But the interior minister’s warning did seem to have only a temporary effect as most treasury benches were again found empty in the later part of the sitting. This forced Asiya Nasir of the government-allied Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, who was chairing the proceedings at the time, to adjourn the house until 10.30am on Friday just as a member of the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf rose to point out the lack of quorum.

A member of the opposition PPP, Imran Zafar Leghari, asked the treasury benches to persuade the prime minister to grace the house, which he attended during the budget session in June. “The beauty of the house is the leader of the house, who has not come here for six months,” he remarked sarcastically.

TRIBUTES: Earlier, before the start of a debate on the law and order situation in the country, the interior minister made a brief policy statement paying a delayed tribute to former army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who retired 11 days ago, and a rather timely one to former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

While calling for giving up what he called a tradition of welcoming every incoming functionary and saying murdabad to every outgoing one, he said he would say zindabad to both Gen Kayani and Justice Chaudhry.

But in the debate on law and order, Awami Muslim League leader Sheikh Rashid Ahmed dismissed the interior minister’s tributes, saying “what great thing has happened” if a chief justice and army chief had retired and new ones had come, asking which other country had given two terms to an army chief.

He described the law and order situation as dismal due to infiltration of terrorists and police inefficiency and called Islamabad the “most unsafe city” in the country.

A PTI member, Shireen Mazari who opened the debate, suggested three solutions: getting out of “American war” in Afghanistan, depoliticisation of police as she said had been done by the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and providing protection to judges and witnesses in prosecuting terrorists.

The MQM’s Nabil Ahmed Gabol complained that the ongoing crackdown in Karachi had not produced the desired result because, he said, it had been directed against his party.

On points raised by former speaker Fehmida Mirza of the PPP and Tehmina Daultana of the PML-N, the petroleum minister cited difficulties relating to equipment and getting a contractor to build the Pakistani side of the Pak-Iran gas pipeline and said the project would be completed after these problems were overcome.