LAHORE, Jan 6: There was a pandemonium in the house on the first day of 18th session on Thursday when the opposition leader took the floor on a point of order to protest "breaching of promise" by Gen Musharraf on his military dress.
Treasury MPAs, mostly women, started hooting as Qasim Zia said he wanted to wish happy new year to all the members but did not because of continuing rule of the army dictator. He said reconciliation reports were causing unrest among many people.
When the treasury MPAs did not stop interruption in Zia's speech, PPP's Samiullah Khan threatened if the leader of the opposition was not allowed to speak in the house the leader of the house would also face the same situation in future.
The trick worked but for a few moments. When Zia said that he who talked of reconciliation in the country, the treasury members butt in by saying that "he had gone out of the country", an obvious reference to Asif Ali Zardari.
This enraged the opposition and they all stood up and started raising slogans of "go Musharraf go", and "wardi wala na manzoor". PML-N's Rana Sanaullah said it had been decided in the business advisory committee's meeting that the opposition would speak in the house on the uniform issue and the law minister had agreed to it. "Now if anyone thinks that he can stop us from doing so he is mistaken."
The chair, being held by speaker Afzal Sahi, confirmed Rana Sana's assertion and directed the treasury to hear the opposition leader quietly like the opposition had been hearing the leader of the house.
Law Minister Raja Basharat, defending behaviour of the treasury benches, termed it reaction to opposition's attitude of not hearing the treasury by walking out of the house after speaking their mind (on the LFO or uniform issue).
He warned that if the leader of the house was not allowed to speak, no-one else would be allowed to speak. After this a general consensus developed in the house as no-one interrupted when Qasim Zia and Rana Sana expressed their views and Raja Basharat replied to their remarks in his speech.
Later, the opposition observed a token walkout to register their protest on the uniform issue. The law minister opposed the chair when the speaker directed Mushtaq Kiani to go and bring the opposition members back into the house.
The Raja, annoyed over the walkout, argued as it was a token action the opposition members would themselves return to the house. Earlier, ruling party's Engr Shehzad Ashraf Butt, who returned victorious in Gujranwala by-polls, took oath as MPA despite objections by PPP's Rana Aftab and Zahid Pervaiz.