Nawaz faced consequences of skipping NA sessions: Khursheed

ISLAMABAD: Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah on Tuesday said former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif had faced the consequences of his not attending the National Assembly sessions.

He said this while registering a protest against the ministers for not attending the assembly sessions, or coming rather late in the House.  Speaking in the National Assembly, the PPP leader flayed the government for low attendance when the National Assembly was to discuss and pass the Electoral Reforms Bill 2017. 

He said out of 342 members, only 50 lawmakers were present.  He said the assembly was scheduled to pass an important legislation (on Tuesday) but members were not present in the House. 

The opposition leader said he was ashamed of seeing such a low level of attendance in the assembly. He said when the prime minister comes to attend the assembly session, others follow suit. 

He said 20 crore people were seeing just empty chairs adding, “When we were students, we were forced to stand on chairs for late arrival. The absenting ministers must get this punishment. The nation sends us to parliament but we break their trust. There are 53 ministers in the assembly but none is present. This it is not the right way of democracy.”

Shah said the ministers who matter were not present in the house. Speaker Ayaz Sadiq also expressed his anger at the low attendance and directed the PML-N chief whip Sheikh Aftab Ahmed to bring in the lawmakers.