Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Lawmakers at the Lower House on Wednesday broke into laughter after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Shireen Mazari allegedly referred to NA Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq as ‘yaar’ (dude).

When Mazari finished her speech regarding human trafficking, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Shaikh Salahuddin drew the speaker’s attention to the matter.

Salahuddin claimed the PTI leader addressed Sadiq using the colloquial term ‘yaar’. The NA speaker asked Mazari to explain if she had called him ‘yaar’.

This resulted in a rather hilarious exchange as the PTI leader asked the NA speaker if he called her ‘yaar’. “I did not call you ‘yaar’ you called me that,” Ayaz Sadiq responded, adding that he wouldn’t dare to do that. “Why will I call you ‘yaar’, I call you speaker,” Mazari laughed as the assembly broke out into laughter. As Mazari continued to crack the joke, she once again referred to the speaker as ‘yaar’ and Sadiq was quick to point it out. However, the PTI leader denied calling him ‘yaar’ again. “I was only responding to your question and asking why I will call you ‘yaar’,” she maintained. When the speaker asked her fellow party leaders, Asad Umar and Shafqat Mehmood, seated behind her to ascertain whether she said it or not, Mazari responded, “I can call them both ‘yaar’, why will I call you that.”PTI’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi also joined in the banter and in an apparent reference to Mazari’s statement of calling Umar and Mehmood ‘yaar’, questioned, “If we can become friends with those sitting behind us then why not with those sitting in front of us.” The speaker then dismissed the matter stating, “Mazari is a friend and like an elder sister.”Sadiq’s statement led to another objection as Mazari wasn’t pleased to be referred to as an “elder sister”. The NA speaker responded to her objections saying, “I have seen your ID card and you are older than me.”Settling the matter, Sadiq said, “Okay fine, you can become a younger sister. Just don’t use words like ‘yaar’ again.” Mazari agreed to the suggestion.

Published in Daily Times, April 12^th 2018.