Daily Times

The government prorogued the 14th session of the Punjab Assembly within a week despite the fact that it was supposed to continue for two weeks.

Both the opposition parties – the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) claimed that the government didn’t want to continue the session for two weeks due to the recent surfacing of some key developments that included the increasing cases of dengue, the child abuse cases in Chunian, the arrest of PPP’s leader Syed Khursheed Shah and the production orders of Hamza Shahbaz.

Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat claimed in his pre-session briefing that the session would continue for two weeks, as the government had a lot of business on the agenda items. The order read by Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari on Friday to adjourn the session sine die was equally surprising for the opposition and journalists sitting in the Press Gallery as all were expecting that it will continue in the second week. PML-N lawmaker Rana Mashhood said earlier on a point of order that he came to know that the session will be prorogued for indefinite time period today and he added that it would be tantamount to suppress the voice of the people of Punjab. “The Speaker gave us commitment in the House that he will talk to the CM and parliamentary party of PTI for the production orders of the opposition leader Hamza Shahbaz for this session and now they are going to prorogue it,” he said. He further added that the government isn’t facing the criticism of opposition and therefore it opted to prorogue it early.

PPP’s parliamentary leader Syed Hassan Murtaza was of the opinion that the government doesn’t have any business on the agenda item and they are just wasting the money of tax payers in the sessions. “They could pass only one bill during the session that cost millions of rupees to the exchequer just because of the government’s inaction on the issues,” he said. We were also not expecting that the session would be prorogued today because we were earlier told that it would remain continue for two weeks, he added. Hassan Murtaza earlier delivered a hard-hitting speech in the House when he said that the government is taking revenge from us in the name of accountability. He said that the NAB arrested veteran PPP leader Syed Khursheed Shah the same day when a national parliamentary conference on Kashmir was in progress in Islamabad. Minister for school education Dr Murad Ras interrupted during the speech of Hassan Murtaza that provoked the PPP to stage walkout from the House. Later, the PPP was persuaded to come back to the House and Murtaza continued his speech. “Will the government give medicine to cancer patients after arresting Khursheed Shah or will the government provide justice to the children of Chunian who were sexually abused by arresting Asif Zardari?” he asked. This time, he was interrupted by PTI’s MPA Uzma Kardar and Deputy Speaker Mazari warned her to take action against her if she doesn’t change her attitude. Uzma left the House in protest over the snubbing of Mazari.

Talking to Daily Times, PML-N’s MPA Samiullah Khan said that the government prorogued the session to avoid the protest of the opposition as we were demanding the production orders of detained MPAs including the opposition leader Hamza Shahbaz. “The dengue has surfaced again, child rape cases appeared again in Kasur and the production orders of Hamza Shahbaz were the issues that government wanted to avoid in the House,” said Samiullah Khan while giving the reason of the adjournment of session sine die.