Daily Times

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly session on Friday was suspended for 10 minutes after heated argument broke out between Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) lawmaker Nusrat Sehar Abbasi and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) minister Imdad Ali Pitafi during the question hour.

The House witnessed uproar as the PML-F lawmaker also engaged in continuous arguments with Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza when her adjournment motion was rejected. The deputy speaker told her to proceed further. Due to serious arguments, other PPP lawmakers also jumped in to support their fellow lawmakers, which added to the shouting and the assembly floor became an auction hall.

The assembly session started late at around 11:10am with Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza in the chair.

Due to continuous uproar on the assembly floor, PPP lawmaker Ghulam Qadir Chandio could not speak during the adjournment motion and the deputy speaker sought the help of senior minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro to maintain discipline, but the PPP senior minister remained silent.

Meanwhile, sensing gravity of the situation, the deputy speaker suspended the session for 10 minutes.

When the session resumed at noon, PPP lawmaker Ghulam Qadir Chandio again tried to speak on a point of order, but the speaker did not permit him. The deputy speaker then asked the PPP lawmaker to speak during the question hour.

The House resonated with slogans of ‘Shame Nawaz Sharif’ and ‘Go Nawaz Go’ as the only Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) lawmaker, Sorath Thebo, spoke. The House on Friday included an adjournment motion on the assembly’s agenda. PML-F lawmaker Nusrat Sehar Abbasi said a notification was issued to upgrade Sajawal Municipal Committee from town committee three years ago, but it had not been given such a status to date. She said that her demand was in public interest, so it should be included in the arguments.

Meanwhile, PPP lawmaker Taimoor Talpur passed comments on her, which angered the PML-F lawmaker, prompting her to demand the deputy speaker to send all those members out of House who were non-serious during the session.

Nusrat Abbasi further said she was facing continuous rejection on adjournment motions, which had hurt her seriously.

During the adjournment motion, senior minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro remarked that some of the fellow members brought useless issue to the House that “make big news in the press” just for the sake of point-scoring.

He said that Sajawal’s status was upgraded to that of a district by the PPP.

Nisar said the notification regarding the town committee had been issue and its office would soon be constructed. “If someone is willing, they can use their laptops and mobiles to work.” After Nisar’s arguments, the deputy speaker rejected the adjournment motion as irrelevant.

Meanwhile, a heated argument broke out between MPAs Nusrat Seher Abbasi and Imdad Pitafi during the question hour. The argument started after PML-F’s Nusrat Seher mocked the language skills of Pitafi. She insisted Pitafi to read an answer out – that was written in English. While responding to her, Pitafi asked Nusrat Seher to come to his chamber to listen to the answer. “Come to my chamber” has negative connotations attached to it, which is why she was offended by the phrase.

The deputy speaker expunged all objectionable and non-parliamentary words from the proceedings.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker Khurram Sher Zaman said that the minister claimed that the road construction standard in Sindh was at par with that of British one but “we have not seen any road of such standards”. Muttahida Quami Movement lawmaker Rana Ansar criticised the unannounced gas load shedding in Hyderabad.

During a point of order, PML-F lawmaker Nusrat Sehar Abbasi pointed out Sindh University student Naila Rind’s suicide case. She said, “We have to protect female students in the province and stop blackmailing of girls.”