Daily Times

LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly faced a serious problem of lack of quorum on its opening session by the reason of suspension of as many as 84 legislators and ministers who failed to file their returns in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in time.

The Punjab Assembly session on Monday started after a four-hour delay at 6pm under the chair of Speaker Rana Iqbal, as the attendance of the legislators was very low due to suspension of one fourth of the total strength of the House. The question hour about the Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering Department was on the agenda but due to suspension of the membership of the minister concerned, the speaker with the consent of opposition member Dr Murad Rass postponed it for next week.

Interestingly, among the suspended legislators were spokesman for the provincial government Malak Muhammad Ahmad Khan and provincial ministers Ch Shafique, Iqbal Channar, Hameeda Waheeduddin, and Syed Haroon Ahmed Sultan Bokhari.

Although the majority of suspended lawmakers belonged to the treasury benches, including some women and minority members, some opposition members who strongly criticised the government for its negligence time to time were included in the list, like PTI’s Malik Taimoor Masood, Ijaz Khan and Ahmed Khan Bhachar; PML-Q’s Waqas Hassan Mokal and PPP’s Khurram Jahangir Wattoo.

Named in the list of suspended members of the ruling party are Malik Umar Farooq, Shehryar Malik, Tahir Sindhu, Sardar Bahadar Khan Maikan, Dr Salahuddin Khan, Ameer Muhammad Khan, Amir Inayat Khan Shahani, Azad Ali Tabassum, Rai Haider Ali Khan, Rana Shoaib Adrees Khan, Jafar Ali Hocha, Arif Mahmood Gill, Ilyas Ansari, Sheikh Ijaz Ahmad, Mian Tahir, Imtiaz Ahmad Lali, Khurram Abbas Sial, Aaun Abbas, Syed Qutab Ali Shah, Ch Ashraf Warraich, Riaz Virk, Ch Asad Ullah, Nawabzada Haider Mehdi, Ch Shabir Ahmed, Ch Akhtar Abbas Bosal, Mahfooz Mashedi, Rana Abdul Sattar, Munawar Gill, Rana Afzal, Ch Mohsin Ashraf, Ch Arshad Javaid Warraich, Awais Qasim Khan, Kh Waseem, Majid Zahoor, Mian Marghoob, Mian Naseer Ahmad, Tajammal Hussain, Hassaan Riaz, Khurram Ijaz Chattah, Ali Asghar Manda, Muhammad Kashif, Malik Ahmad Saeed Khan, Syed Raza Ali Gillani, Masood Shafqat, Ali Abbas, Rana Mehmood-ul-Hassan, Peer Zada Mian Shazad Maqbool Bhutta, Rana Tahir Shabbir, Pirzada Muhammad Jhangir Sultan, Malik Sajjad Hussain Joiya, Ahmed Khan Baloch, Akbar Hayat Harraj, Arshad Khan Lodhi, Mumtaz Ahmad Kaisrani, Jamal Laghari, Atif Mazari, Zishan Gurmani, Ahmad Karim Qaswar Langrial, Abdul Majeed Niazi, Qaisar Abbas, Ch Ghulam Murtaza, Rais Muhammad Mehboob Ahmed, Makhdoom Syed Ali Akbar Mehmood, Rukhsana Kokab, Sumaira Sami, Farah Manzoor, Azra Sabir Khan, Tahia Noon, Zill-e-Huma, Hina Pervaiz Butt, Ghazala Shaheen, Kanji Ram, Tariq Masih Gill, and Shakeel Ivan.

The Punjab Assembly session continued only for 10 minutes and was adjourned after pointing out of the quorum by Dr Murad Rass of the opposition benches soon after recitation of verses from the Holy Quran and naat. The session is scheduled to resume today at 10am.

Published in Daily Times, October 17^th 2017.