The fourth session, presided over by Speaker Bakht Jahan Khan, was about to go by the agenda when opposition members started thumping benches and refused to listen to the speaker. They were protesting against a recent reshuffle in the education and health departments.
The Awami National Party MPAs endorsed the protest, but in their own way; they did no sloganeering or hooting. They remained seated in their enclosure. The Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians members remained torn between the opposition and treasury benches and it was hard to judge who they were siding with.
Talking to newsmen, Senior Minister Sirajul Haq commented that opposition had launched their protest against nothing but to oppose the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government. By their protest they sent the MMA a signal to stop its own opposition to the Legal Framework Order in the National Assembly and Senate.
PML-N parliamentary leader Anwar Kamal Khan Marwat said his party was also opposed to the reshuffle in the education and health departments, but endorsing the LFO was wrong. It seemed, Mr Marwat said, the PML-Q and PPP-S were toeing someone else’s line.
When the speaker resumed the session for the second time after an hour break, the PML-Q and PPP-S members stood in their benches and disrupted the proceedings by resorting to sloganeering again. They turned a deaf ear to the speaker’s repeated requests for order.
However, the house completed its agenda despite the protest.
Talking to newsmen in his chamber, Speaker Bakht Jahan Khan said the opposition had requisitioned this session and they agreed on the agenda, but why they were disrupting the proceedings was not a secret.
The speaker said he followed the agenda and formed a petition committee and panel of chairmen and allowed Pir Mohammad Khan and Salim Khan to present their adjournment motions on education and health, and the house referred them to the standing committees. Also, he said, the house received the annual report of the NWFP Public Service Commission.
PPP-Parliamentarians parliamentary leader Abdul Akbar Khan, who wanted to table an adjournment motion about what he called rebellion by a district Nazim against the provincial government, preferred not to speak because of deafening protest.
PPP-S parliamentary leader Syed Mureed Kazim denied that the opposition was toeing Centre’s line to destabilize the MMA-led government in the province.
He said he was ignorant who was running the province as there were many chief ministers in the NWFP. “We are crying against bullying by the non-elected hordes of the MMA. For me, Lutfur Rehman (a younger brother of Maulana Fazlur Rehman) is chief minister, who sits in the office of the Communication and Works department in D.I. Khan,” he said.