The house met at 11.10am with Mohammad Hussain, a member of the panel of chairmen, in the chair. Leader of the opposition, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, raising a point of order, asked some questions with regard to Mr Bhurgari’s arrest.
The chair asked law minister to explain the situation but he could not answer Mr Khuhro’s question. Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui also appeared ill-informed, but he assured the house that he would be able to update the house in this regard after Zuhr break.
Following his assurance, Dr Sikander Mandhro from the opposition benches initiated the debate on the budget. In his hard-hitting speech, he asserted that facts could not be altered with mere cosmetic changes.
He told the house that sense of deprivation among smaller provinces was taking roots, and warned that this could pose a threat to the federation. He pointed out that it was the third consecutive year where a budget was presented without a consensus of all provinces on the NFC Award. He deplored that while provinces were not being released promised allocations by the federation, their demand that the distribution of provincial resources be based on the principles of justice was also being turned down.
Referring the poor condition of the people of Sindh, he quoted from the speech of Finance Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed that “every second man in rural area is living beyond poverty level, and 90 per cent of the rural population is devoid of health, sanitation and drinking water facilities.” Mr Mandhro told the house that contaminated water had been playing havoc with the health of the Sindh people by spreading gastroenteritis and other diseases but no attention was being paid to bring about an improvement in the situation.
The law and order situation was also deteriorating as even judges were being kidnapped. So much so that they were being released only on payment of ransom and their release would come with the help of convicts.
Highlighting the poor state of agriculture in the province, he said that more than 1.7 million acres of land had already been rendered barren for want of water.
Mr Mandhro referred to the figurative anomalies in the budget documents and as an example pointed out that the Sindh’s share in the NFC Award was shown as Rs86 billion but calculation of break-up put the figure at Rs81 billion. There appeared no mention of the remaining Rs5 billion, he added.
Mr Qamar Mansoor led the discussion from treasury benches. He greeted the finance minister for presenting a tax-free budget, and said that due to the efforts put in by Chief Minister Dr Arbab, the province had succeeded in curtailing the deficit of Rs5.38 billion and releasing more than 90 per cent of development funds to district governments.
The credit of special development packages for Karachi and Hyderabad also goes to the chief minister, he said, adding that the chief minister should also be praised for introducing industrial estates in the interior of Sindh which would help address the sense of deprivation among its people.
Mr Mansoor criticized district governments for claiming credit of the development projects, and reminded them that funds for these projects were provided by the provincial government without any discrimination.
Rafique engineer of the PPP, in his emotional speech, wondered that the allocation for law and order appeared just 18 per cent higher than the previous one in spite of the fact that the situation had been worsening. He referred to the killings of Abdullah Murad, Munawwar Suhrawardi, Raziq Khan, Mufti Shamzai and other important figures, and deplored that their killers had not yet been arrested.
He also made mention of the recent crash of stock market and reminded the house that many poor people had lost their hard-earned money. He claimed that MPA Zahid Bhurgari had been arrested for raising his voice against the government’s move to present the ‘incomplete budget’, i.e. without NFC Award.
Opposition’s strong reaction over the arrest of Mr Bhurgari was witnessed when Law Minister Iftikhar Chaudhry started making his statement on the issue soon after the Zuhr break. He was interrupted by many opposition members who were shouting ‘shame… shame…’, creating a pandemonium in the house.
Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, who was chairing the afternoon session, kept asking them to calm down and let the house resume discussion on the budget.
The uproar set off when Mr Khuhro demanded the law minister to explain the arrest of Mr Bhurgari and the minister, quoting from a home ministry report, told the house that Zahid Bhurgari had been arrested under Explosives Act 1997 and 427 PPC on Monday at 4am from near the Ranni Kot link road.
The opposition maintained that he had been implicated in a false case and the motive was to harass the opposition and prevent it from criticizing policies of the provincial government.
While the law minister was still reading out the statement, Mr Saifullah Dharejo stood up and, interrupting him, accused the government of instituting false cases against the PPP member. His certain remarks targeted at the treasury benches had to be expunged by the speaker, who asked him to stop speaking as he had not been given the flour.
The speaker also asked other opposition members to let the minister complete his statement. More than half-a-dozen treasury members, however, also started shouting to counter the opposition’s offensive. This led to a complete disorder in the house.
During a brief pause, the Assembly Secretary Hadi Bux Burriro read out the home department’s report about Mr Bhurgari’s arrest.
Taking the floor, Mr Khuhro told the house that it was in the speaker’s chamber on Monday morning that he had drawn his (the speaker’s) attention to Mr Bhurgari’s arrest made at 9pm on Sunday.
The speaker, he said, had expressed his ignorance about the same and even the law minister appeared unaware. “Is the government so incompetent that it could not inform the speaker about the arrest? Doesn’t it know that no legislator can be taken into custody without informing the speaker while the house is in session?”
After Mr Khuhro’s speech, opposition members again started chanting slogans causing a rumpus. The speaker warned that he would discontinue discussion on the budget if order was not restored.
As the opposition did not heed his warning, the speaker called it a day. Later, all opposition members, led by Mr Khuhro, proceeded to the chamber of the speaker and demanded issuance of a letter asking police to bring Mr Bhurgari to the house to attend the session.
The speaker maintained that issuance of such an order was prerogative of National Assembly speaker only. However, he advised Mr Khuhro to write to the magistrate concerned in this regard, and said that he would attach a covering letter with the communication.