LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has announced that it will boycott the Punjab Assembly proceedings until a ban on entry into its building, imposed on six of its members, is in place.

Speaker of the Punjab Assembly, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, had on Tuesday barred MPAs Ashraf Rasool, Malik Wahid, Yasin Amir, Mirza Javed, Zaibunnisa and Tariq Masih Gill from entering the assembly building till conclusion of the budget session for “attacking the assembly staff, damaging the recording system, mikes and furniture and passing indecent remarks about the government”.

As the proceedings resumed on Friday morning, the six members were stopped by security staff at the main entrance of the assembly building. The PML-N members then staged a sit-in in protest against the speaker’s decision to ban the entry of their six colleagues.

The protesting lawmakers, who were wearing black armbands, chanted slogans against the government and called for immediate lifting of the ban on entry of the six MPAs into the house.

Six opposition members may be asked to pay for damaged furniture, says minister

Soon the son of PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif and leader of the opposition in the house, Hamza Shahbaz, reached there and joined the protest.

The PML-N legislators (minus the six whose entry had been banned) then entered the legislature’s premises and held a demonstration at the stairs of the assembly building. They also called for the release of PML-N president.

“The PML-N will boycott the assembly proceedings until our six suspended MPAs are permitted to participate in them,” said Mr Hamza. “All the assembly members are my family. I will stand by them and I will not go to the assembly till the suspended MPAs are allowed entry,” he said.

He complained about the speaker’s behaviour and said Mr Elahi was trying to run the house like a station house officer. He alleged the assembly’s secretariat had issued a fake photograph that showed furniture pieces and mikes that were said to be damaged during Tuesday’s session. He also called for the formation of a house committee to investigate the matter.

PML-N lawmaker Samiullah Khan said the speaker was deliberately vitiating the assembly’s atmosphere by taking unnecessary actions against the opposition members. He was of the opinion that no other legislature in the country was being run in a manner similar to how Mr Elahi was running the Punjab Assembly.

He said Mr Elahi should immediately lift the ban on the six PML-N members and constitute a committee to look into the affair.

He should also withdraw his application for the filing of an FIR against the suspended MPAs, Mr Khan added.

A provincial minister said that police officers were called to the assembly building after the PML-N members had resorted to hooliganism. The photograph in question had been taken in the presence of the police officers and footage of Tuesday’s session had also been acquired.

“In fact we exercised caution because their actions were such that an FIR should have been lodged against them.”

The minister said the government was considering a proposal to recover Rs1 million from the six MPAs to compensate for the damaged furniture pieces and mikes.

He said the opposition had been exposed before the public. “The people have rejected the negative politics of the opposition,” he added.

The central information secretary of the PML-Q, former senator Kamil Ali Agha, said Mr Hamza had forgotten the days when he had requested a friend of Gen Pervez Musharraf to give relief to the Sharif family.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2018