Daily Times

Government and Opposition lawmakers in Punjab Assembly on Friday expressed dismay over absence of Mines and Mineral minister and concerned parliamentary secretary from the House despite the fact that they already knew that they were supposed to answer the queries during the question-hour.

As per the details, the opposition pointed out towards the absence of Minister for Mines and Minerals Hafiz Ammar Yasir during the question-hour that was related to his department. It was further revealed that the parliamentary secretary of the concerned department was also not present in the House.

The opposition protested over this non-serious attitude while demanding stern action against the minister. It brought embarrassment for Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat as he said that it is really regretful that the concerned minister is not here.

“I never saw both the minister and parliamentary secretary absent from the House. I’ll not become part of this House if it is run like this way,” said Law Minister. He further added that no one even bothered to inform the House regarding their absence. He requested the chair to hold an inquiry and stern action should be taken against those who were responsible for it. “I’ll talk to Chief Minister over this issue as no compromise will be made regarding the sanctity of this august House,” said Raja Bashrat.

He also tendered his apology to the House being the Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs and requested the chair to suspend the question-hour. This embarrassing situation of government was also exploited by the opposition as former Speaker Rana Iqbal came down hard and said that the government doesn’t want to run this House in democratic way. He also demanded stern action against the minister.

Earlier, the session of Punjab Assembly started after the delay of more than two hours from its scheduled time with Panel of Chairman Mian Muhammad Shafi in the chair. Woman MPAs from both the opposition and treasury benches also protested against not establishing women parliamentarians’ caucus in three years. They demanded that women caucus should be established soon.

The session was later prorogued for indefinite time period.