The opposition members were annoyed by Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah’s refusal to allow leader of the opposition Nisar Ahmed Khuhro to speak on a point of order.
Mr Khuhro wanted to speak on the issue of Kalabagh Dam and Mr Kamil Ali Agha’s statement that the “dam would be built come what may, even on the corpses.”
As the assembly went into session, Senior Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad presented Rs171.22 billion tax-free budget for Sindh. He then moved a motion for presenting the finance bill 2006-07, which is supposed to be taken into consideration in the house on June 28.
At the fag end of his speech, the opposition members wearing black armbands, announced a boycott for the rest of the proceedings as a mark of protest against presenting the budget without the NFC Award, allocating funds for the Kalabagh Dam in the federal budget, and the government failure to arrest killers of prominent political and religious figures in terrorist attacks and culprits of the April 11 bomb blast at Nishtar Park.
This was for the fourth time in the provincial assembly’s history that the entire opposition kept standing throughout the day’s proceedings. The opposition members started waiving placards when the speaker denied Mr Khuhro permission to speak on his point of order, citing the Rule 116. He then asked Syed Sardar Ahmed to present the budget.
The placards displayed by the opposition members read: “Stop punishing Karachi traders, “Stop extorting Karachi transporters” “Don’t turn the city into a city of darkness”, etc.
Waiving the placards facing the treasury benches, they kept raising slogans of “shame… shame…; Kalabagh Dam, Thal Canal not acceptable; Stop loadshedding, razing of goths and katchi abadis; “Arrest killers of Suhrawardi, Abdullah Murad and perpetrators of Nishtar Park bombing” and “Budget without NFC Award farce”.
Their noisy protest continued while the minister was presenting the budget. When they staged the walkout, the minister had already delivered 90 per cent of his speech, though his words were not audible in the press gallery.
Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, who led the treasury members entering the house at 3.10pm, remained calm throughout the session. Most of the time, he concentrated on the budget speech but the opposition members’ loud slogans would often disturb him.
His predecessor, Sardar Ali Mohammad Mehar, was sitting in the first row with Dr Sohrab Serki, and like other ministers and treasury MPAs, he would give a cursory look to the opposition benches during the uproar.
The only person who was engrossed in the budget speech was Adviser to the CM on Finance M. A. Jalil.
While the opposition members were leaving the house at 4.15pm with Mr Khuhro being the last one, musing members from treasury benches were heard saying “the opposition ran away.”
The opposition MPAs left the house by raising the PPP’s popular slogan of ’70s, “Roti, Kapra Aur Makan, Maang Raha hai har Insaan”.
Earlier, the house offered fateha for departed souls, including Aamir Cheema, a Pakistani who was allegedly tortured to death in a police lock-up in Germany, and the Al-Qaeda leader Abu Masab Zarqawi, who was killed in air raid by the US army in Iraq.
After nomination of Mohammad Hussain, Farhad Jatoi, Dr Irfan Gul Magsi and Dr Sikander Mandro as members of the Panel of Chairmen, Mr Khuhro sought the chair’s permission to speak on his point of order and urged the speaker to relax the rules under Rule 211. The chair cited Rule 116 that states that on the day of the presentation of budget, the house proceedings will remain confined to the budget speech.
After introduction of the finance bill 2006-07, the speaker adjourned the session till 9:30am on Monday.