Daily Times

LAHORE: Despite heavy mandate and more than 300 legislators of the ruling Nawaz League in the Punjab Assembly, the issue of lack of quorum is still unresolved, as 80 percent of the treasury members did not bother joining Thursday’s session.

Resultantly, the session was unwillingly adjourned by Deputy Speaker Sardar Sher Ali Gorchani soon after opening the House for general discussion on the food and agriculture sector.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker Mian Asif Mehmood pointed out the quorum just when Punjab Minister for Agriculture Naeem Bhabha had started his speech to open the House for discussion by highlighting the key achievements of the government in the sector. At that time, only 41 treasury members were present in the House, including only two ministers and three parliamentary secretaries. It is worth mentioning that the total number of opposition legislators stands less than 50 in the sitting House, of which only eight were present.

Before pointing the quorum out, Asif Mehmood also slammed the treasury members for raising the issue of increasing their salaries despite the ‘fact’ that they had no interest in running the government business and hence fulfilling their responsibility.

Asif said that the legislative assembly was the supreme institute of the province to protect the interests of the people of Punjab, but treasury members had no interest in participating in the matter of general public’s interest. He also put a question mark on the demand of treasury members for increasing their salaries to Rs 175,000 per month, putting them on a par with lawmakers of other provinces in terms of remuneration.

Interestingly, when the Punjab Assembly session was started an hour late from its scheduled time at 10am, only 21 members, including three members of the opposition and a minister, were present in the House and until the adjournment of the session, this number did not cross 50.

After the session, opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed, while talking to the media, strongly condemned the lack of interest of treasury members in the proceedings, demanding Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif that he should first come himself in the House and take notice of his party’s legislators.

In a teasing mood, the opposition leader further stated that lack of quorum was a failure of the government, so the Punjab CM must arrange breakfasts and lunches on a daily basis for his MPAs to complete the quorum, as “no MPA of treasury is interested in joining the session without ‘khaaba’ (food)”.

Talking to Daily Times, the opposition leader also said that the quorum could easily be completed if all 80 ministers, parliamentary secretaries, advisers and the CM joined the session in time.