Daily Times

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has demanded the pre-budget session of Punjab Assembly that was earlier scheduled to be held in the month of March but wasn’t convened due to the COVID-19 and the lockdown in the province.

As the lockdown has been eased down to some extent and the government has allowed some sectors to operate by following the SOPs, the PML-N has demanded to convene the pre-budget session of the Punjab Assembly immediately. The meeting of parliamentary advisory group of PML-N in Punjab Assembly was held on Monday through video link where this demand was formally made. The parliamentary advisory group is basically a group of senior MPAs of PML-N that crafts the policy of the party in Punjab Assembly.

On Monday, the meeting of parliamentary advisory group was chaired by former two-times Speaker Punjab Assembly and senior lawmaker of PML-N Rana Muhammad Iqbal while MPAs Sardar Awais Laghari, Samiullah Khan, Ch Iqbal Gujjar, Malik Nadeem Kamran, Zeeshan Rafique, Khalil Tahir Sandhu, Kh Salman Rafique, Kh Imran Nazir, Mehar Ijaz Ichlana, Ch Shafique, Zakiya Shah Nawaz, Azma Bukhari, Saba Sadiq, Waris Kallu, Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman, Mansha Ullah Butt and Pir Ashraf Rasool participated in the meeting through video link.

The parliamentarians were unanimous in demanding the pre-budget session of Punjab Assembly while urging the Speaker Ch Pervaiz Elahi to craft the SOPs for the session. The MPAs were of the view that Speaker Pervaiz Elahi should prepare the SOPs for this session otherwise the PML-N can submit the requisition to call the session. According to the rules of business of the Punjab Assembly, the Speaker is bound to convene the session within fourteen days of the submission of the requisition signed by 1/4th members of the House and PML-N has over 166 members in the house of 371 while only 93 MPAs are required to submit the requisition. If the requisition is submitted by the PML-N, then Speaker will not have any other option except to call the session within 14 days.

The parliamentary advisory group also condemned the detention of opposition leader Hamza Shehbaz as they said that NAB has failed to prove any allegation against Hamza in last ten months. The MPAs also demanded to call the journalists in the meetings of special committee of Punjab Assembly comprising parliamentary leaders that was constituted over COVID-19. The media persons should be called in the meeting of parliamentary committee for live coverage of COVID-19, the MPAs urged the Speaker. They were of the view that the government has eased down the lockdown and some sectors have also been allowed to work under some SOPs. The elected representatives cannot become silent spectators in this time of crisis and therefore the session of Punjab Assembly must be called immediately and all the MPAs will follow the SOPs of the government, the PML-N said. As per the rules of Punjab Assembly, the pre-budget session must be held till March 31 but it couldn’t be held this year due to the Corona Virus and lockdown.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Speaker has earlier constituted a committee over COVID-19 consisting of parliamentary leaders. Law minister Raja Basharat, PPP Parliamentary Leader Syed Hassan Murtaza, PML-N MPAs Samiullah Khan, Sardar Awais Laghari, Kh Salman Rafique, PTI MPAs Nazir Chohan, Ameen Zulqarnain, and MPAs Malik Ahmad Ali Aulakh and Maulana Muavia Azam are the members of the committee.