KARACHI, Feb 25: The Sindh Assembly, which met here on Friday after a recess of almost two months, went into a requisitioned session in the morning but was adjourned within the next 25 minutes without deliberating upon any business.
Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, who had summoned the session on a requisition signed by 59 MPAs belonging to the PPP and MMA, refused to run the disorderly proceedings as the opposition benches persistently pressed him to suspend the relevant rules and take into consideration their adjournment motion pertaining to the sacking of a minister out of turn.
Soon after the panel of chairmen was announced, leader of the opposition Nisar Ahmad Khuhro rose on a point of order and drew the chair's attention to the adjournment motion about the crisis stirred up by the sacking of revenue minister Imtiaz Ahmad Shaikh.
The move was opposed by treasury benches. "Where is the crisis?" asked the Minister for Mines, Irfanullah Marwat, who was supported by Minister for Law Chaudhry Iftekhar.
Amid a rumpus, Mr Marwat was heard drawing attention of the house to the move under which Syed Qaim Ali Shah had removed as chief minister and Aftab Shaban Mirani had taken over the office in the PPP government.
The opposition had not made it an issue, Mr Marwat asserted as the uproar continued. Some PPP legislators retorted that the change had involved no allegations, rather it was a smooth transition.
At one stage, Mr Marwat and Chaudhry Iftekhar on the treasury benches, and Mr Khuhro on the opposition benches were all speaking simultaneously with the latter trying hard to seek the chair's permission to move his motion. Mr Dharejo also joined the opposition leader. Mr Murad Ali Shah also stood up to add his voice to the opposition's demand.
Due to the pandemonium, nothing was audible and the MPAs were not responding to the speaker's repeated calls to restore order. He had to warn them of adjourning the proceedings if the chaos persisted.
Finally, the speaker allowed Mr Khuhro to read out his notice to move the adjournment motion No. 27 out of turn. Mr Khuhro read out the notice requesting the chair to exercise his powers under Rule 211 to suspend the rules and take up his motion out of turn.
He said that the removal of the minister on corruption charges and the minister's allegations of corruption and nepotism against the chief minister had shaken the whole assembly.
Taking the floor, Chaudhry Iftekhar opposed Mr Khuhro's move. He said he had withdrawn his own Feb 14 move get the assembly session summoned after Ashura just to avoid being accused of bulldozing the opposition's move for a requisition session.
The minister said that law and order and other issues which were mentioned as priority business in the agenda of the requisition session should be taken up in precedence.
He refuted the claim of any crisis arising out of the government's act of taking notice of wrong doing by someone. Rather, he added, the action proved the stability of the government. The chief minister is fully authorized to remove any minister found involved in malpractice and removal of a minister did not mean there was a crisis.
Insisting that it was purely an internal matter of the PML, and cited the example of Mr Khuhro who had been removed as PPP's Sindh chief, arguing that the treasury benches had never demanded the matter to be taken up on the floor of the house.
Therefore, the law minister said, the agenda should be taken up with a discussion on law and order as this was an important matter. The opposition leader again rose and insisted on moving his adjournment motion but the chair refused to oblige him, saying that he did have the powers to relax the rules but would not exercise them.