LAHORE, Sept 16: The quorum crisis hit the Punjab Assembly session on Friday when the opposition staged a walk-out and one of its members came back to point out the thin attendance. On head counting, the speaker found the figure short as only 73 representatives were present against the quorum requirement of 93, and ordered ringing of the assembly bells for five minutes.

It sent all treasury members in a frantic search for their colleagues, but they could found only 15 members after best of their efforts, taking the tally to 88. On second counting, Malik Nazar Fareed Khokhar, the officiating speaker, declared the quorum and carried on with the proceedings.

But within 15 minutes of second counting, the attendance became even thinner as the treasury members kept leaving the hall, bringing the count to around 70. Since the opposition had walked out, no one was there to point out the quorum.

The opposition had staged a walk-out when the chair did not allow them to continue discussing, what it said, corruption of the government and massive rigging in recently-held polls.

Samiullah Khan of the PPP stood on a point of order and sought permission to continue discussion on the government’s performance. Punjab Law and Local Bodies Minister Raja Basharat opposed the discussion and asked Mr Khan and the rest of the opposition members to bring an adjournment motion, which provoked Mr Khan to stage a walk-out and the others followed him.

One of their colleagues, Tanveer Ali Qaira, returned to the house to point out incomplete quorum.

The speaker took up adjournment motions in the absence of the opposition and was able to dispose of 17 of those in the next 10 minutes. Of them, only two belonged to the treasury benches and the rest of those were related to the opposition.

A heated debate was stoked off in the house from the beginning when the opposition took up official reporting of Raja Basharat. It contended that a press release, issued by the Director-General Public Relation, included remarks which were not part of Thursday’s proceedings.

The opposition wanted a ruling from the chair whether someone could make some addition or deletion in the assembly record like that. The law minister, however, denied doing so and argued that some remarks in the speech he had delivered in the house later were included in the DGPR press release.

He claimed that the DGPR team also sat in the assembly for reporting purposes and they might have done it. The speaker asked the minister to get a clarification from the DGPR and furnish the house with it.

The Law and Parliamentary Affairs Department also tabled the Bank of Punjab (amendment) Ordinance of 2005 in the house.

The official business for the day also included questions about the industries, mines and mineral, and the excise and taxation departments. But the house could hardly take up two questions when noisy arguments on other topics started.

Later, the speakers adjourned the house proceedings till 3pm on Monday evening.