Daily Times

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and the Opposition have agreed to let each other’s leaders make speeches in parliament without staging any protests, a private news channel reported on Tuesday.

Sources noted that leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), representing the opposition, met a delegation of the federal government in the NA speaker’s chamber.

Shehbaz Sharif, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president, is, therefore, set to deliver his budget speech in the session scheduled to commence at 10:30am today (Wednesday).

According to reports, in order to run the House in a calm and peaceful manner, there would be no protest from either side during their leaders’ speeches. They added that points of objection would be offered in turns to both the government and the opposition.

Earlier, Shehbaz Sharif, for the third time, was unable to complete his speech on the Federal Budget 2019-20 despite getting yet another chance to take up a debate on the budget, as members of the federal government and the opposition leaders continued chanting slogans and disrupting the decorum of the session.

A day prior as well, Shehbaz was not allowed to start a budget debate. That was the second consecutive session when he could not do so. On Friday, the NA session had ended in chaos after Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri repeatedly urged Sharif to start his speech on the federal budget.

It may be mentioned here that parliamentarians from both sides in the National Assembly continued their protest, not allowing the lawmakers to initiate debate on the budget.

According to details, a commotion started in the NA session as soon as Shehbaz Sharif started delivering his speech. Opposition and government members stood up and chanted slogans against each other, whereas the deputy speaker also rebuked PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal and female members for recording videos on their phones. Suri reproached Ahsan Iqbal asserting, “Even you, being a former federal minister, are using phone in the House. You won’t use a mobile phone again as I am a speaker and I have been elected through votes to have an authority here.”

Suri wanted to run the session in a peaceful manner by giving Shehbaz a chance to deliver his speech without anyone leaving their seat or causing interruption.

The PML-N leader said that Musharraf’s era saw load shedding of up to 20 hours a day, whereas the PML-N government generated 11,000MW power. He claimed that his party had brought significant improvement in the national economy during its five-year tenure. “Economic growth rate was increased to 5.8 percent despite the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) rate of 3.3 percent. It was a historical record in the last 13 years which was achieved in the PML-N’s era,” he maintained.

Shehbaz’s address was interrupted by the government legislators’ protest who surrounded his seat. The protest forced the deputy speaker to adjourn the session for 20 minutes.

Earlier, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh laid the Assets Declaration Ordinance 2019 in the National Assembly. After the start of the sitting at 5:10pm against the scheduled time of 4pm, the adviser laid the ordinance as required under Clause (2) of Article 89 of the constitution.