LAHORE, July 25: The opposition, sans the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, boycotted the Punjab Assembly at the fag end of the session on Friday when the speaker did not allow a privilege motion moved by PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah against deportation of Shahbaz Sharif and his two daughters.
This is in spite of starting the day’s proceedings on a positive note with the opposition “suspending” its boycott and pledging to “cooperate as long as the treasury benches work for protecting the constitution.”
But the opposition announced that the boycott was for one day only and promised to return when the assembly would meet on Monday at 3pm.
The speaker had maintained that the deportation of Sharifs was a law and order matter which would be discussed in routine on Monday and did not accept it as a breach of privilege of members who were not allowed to meet the detained family.
Earlier, combined opposition leader Qasim Zia, in his inaugural speech, said the opposition had deferred its protest due to the talks offer by the prime minister. That was a good omen, he added, and asked the government to also end political victimization to keep the spirit of cooperation alive.
Mr Zia maintained that the opposition had always wanted to keep the working of the assembly smooth, but was forced to protest because of negative attitude of the treasury benches.
Though there was some progress on the release of development funds to the opposition MPs, its district and tehsil Nazims were still being forced to change their loyalties, he continued.
He requested the government to end the process and let the district governments work.
“The end of boycott is conditional to upholding of constitution and protecting people’s right in democratic spirit. The opposition reserves the right to resort to boycott and protest when it sees both the condition are not being accepted,” he added.
Law Minister Raja Basharat told the house that the government was not involved in political manoeuvring of any sorts.
“There might be some local politics involved in the no-confidence motions being planned in some tehsils but the government was not patronizing anyone or opposing others.”
He denied the charges that Lahore district Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood was planning a move against a town Nazim on behalf of the government.
“Mian Amer is not the government, but a part of the district government. If he is planning some democratic change in one of the towns, he has the right as long as the proceedings stay democratic,” he said.
Rana Sanaullah said the opposition could not allow any single person to amend the constitution. This was the root cause of the crisis. As long as the problem persisted, chances of any long term truce did not exist.
He said the prime minister had offered talks to the opposition some months ago. Teams were formed who discussed matters at length and finalized recommendation, but “someone” did not want the talks to succeed.
“Now, after wasting almost two months, the government is back with talks offers. It should realize that dialogues were the only solution and must continue talking with the opposition. Otherwise, the opposition would have no option but to continue protesting.”