Daily Times

LAHORE: Unequal disbursement of development funds among the districts in proposed annual budget for fiscal 2017-18 has raised serious question about the actual role of Punjab Assembly regarding legislation instead of obliging the blue-eyed treasury members from the government.

Mostly the members including some of the treasury members during the budget debate complained about their suggestion and proposed development projects not being accommodated in the budget.

One of the senior most legislators of Nawaz League from Toba Take Singh district, Mian Rafique, while delivering his speech termed the Punjab Assembly a “race club” to produce only “winning horses for elections” instead of doing its real job of making legislations in favour of the people of the province.

Mian Rafique strongly criticised his own government for not giving sufficient funds for the development projects in his native district and the constituency.

He said that in the last general election, his party made a mut’ah (contract marriage) with rival Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). “Why can’t a similar deal be made now to come out of the current crises (involving the ruling Sharifs)?”

Though Acting Speaker Sardar Sher Ali Gorchani interrupted the legislator several times, stopping him from criticising the government, Mian Rafique continued delivering his speech, even after the chair muted his microphone.

Anyhow, the opposition enjoyed it and supported the treasury member with remarks that they had been facing such a situation (deprivation of development funds) since the last four years.

Meanwhile, the press gallery walked out of the assembly against torture of a journalist by the staff of the General Hospital as well as non-implementation on the assembly resolution for their rights. Journalists ended their protest after assurance of the government of addressing the matter immediately.

During the Punjab Assembly session on Thursday, some of the treasury members, including Maulana Ghiasuddin and Asghar Ali Manda, raised the issue of blasphemy from the opposition and demanded registration of a criminal case under Section 295c against them.

Maulana Ghiasuddin said that opposition members tore up copies of the budget speech and desecrated the papers during their protest on June 2, when Finance Minister Dr Ayesha was addressing the House.

Opposition members opposed the treasury’s move, on which a vocal female legislator of the treasury, Dr Farzan, chanted that they (treasury members) were devotees of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). On this, opposition member Dr Murad Rass responded with a view that they (treasury members) were not devotees of Islam but Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

Dr Farzana also separately had a quarrel with opposition member Mian Aslam Iqbal who said that she was the person who had made speeches against Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif in the Punjab Assembly during the previous government of the Q-League.