Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Rumpus in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly shows immaturity of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) legislators and their lack of vision of the decorum of the house.

Adding to the mess, the aging deputy speaker Dr Maher Taj Rogani, who is an expert gynaecologist, failed to keep order in the house. Opposition as well as ruling lawmakers sometimes react arrogantly to her remarks and often laughter resonates in the assembly hall when she gives a ruling.

The assembly proceedings on Monday were marred when PTI MPA Arbab Jahandad Khan slapped MPA Javed Naseem and had a scuffle with him. As Naseem puts it, Khan appeared to be dozing, as he was taking it as a joke, but he slapped him and tried to be physical.

Jamaat-e-Islami and PTI MPAs got hold of the two and separated them until the assembly security reached and took the two to separate lobbies. The deputy speaker adjourned the session for 15 minutes when PPP MPA Nighat Orakzai tore apart copies of the agenda and threw the papers in the air.

Khan, as many witnessed, appeared not to be in his senses, as he repeatedly tried to disrupt the speech of PML-N parliamentary leader in the assembly Sardar Aurangzeb Nalota when he was welcoming the newly elected member of his party from PK-8, Arbab Waseem Hayat. He was told by the speaker to keep quite.

The interference led to shouting and yelling from both opposition and ruling members, though the deputy speaker managed to control the damage this time.

Even though the proceedings resumed after 15 minutes, the mood of the legislators appeared to be too casual to finish the agenda. The house was adjourned till May 25.

Naseem appeared to be justified and many may testify Khan seemed to be out of senses when his fellow lawmakers took him away to defuse the tension. Mushtaq Ghani, adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and spokesman for the provincial government, dispelled the impression that Khan was drunk. He however condemned the incident, saying it should not have happened and it was too much.

Orakzai castigated the government for such a casual response and mess in the assembly. She said that PTI’s failure was evident from the assembly proceedings and it had failed to reign in its own MPAs who were scuffling in the assembly.

Minsiter for Local Government Inyatullah Khan said the incident should be condemned and it should not have happened. “I must say it’s against the assembly decorum and norms and have to be addressed and taken seriously,” he added.