PA adjourned within five minutesover quorum

LAHORE :Devil-may-care attitude of the ruling party MPAs and ministers made the mockery of the legislation process as Punjab Assembly session which started with a delay of four hours led to adjournment within five minutes due to lack of quorum.

The PA, which met for the first time in its 32nd session, couldn’t continue its proceedings for more than five minutes after the Opposition MPA Dr Murad Raas pointed out quorum while criticising the constant non-serious attitude of the ruling party members.

At the time when PA session started, only a few cabinet members, including Rana Sana Ullah Khan, Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, Mansha Ullah Butt and Sher Ali Khan were in the House whereas most of the members, including minister for housing couldn’t turn up to the session due to the suspension of his membership for not filing the tax returns.  

After the quorum was pointed out, bells were rung and in the stipulated period of five minutes, 85 members out of total 371 were present in the House after which the Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan adjourned the proceedings until today (Tuesday).

Even the cabinet members of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif from the city of Lahore, for whom attending the PA session wasn’t an uphill task as compared to those returning from remote districts of Southern Punjab didn’t show any interest in the process of legislation and remained absent. The Punjab cabinet members from Lahore who didn’t attend the PA session which led to adjournment, including Khawaja Imran Nazir, Khawaja Salman Rafique, Rana Mashhood, Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman and Bilal Yasin, didn’t turn up to attend the PA session whereas Zaeem Qadri, who has been inducted as minister in the last year of the PML-N government only appeared for a few seconds before the beginning of the session and wasn’t seen again.

Criticising the non-serious attitude of the ruling party members, Dr Murad Raas said it was awful that the House which represented the voice of the people of Punjab was being treated in such a way and proceedings had started after a lapse of four hours.

He added that the ruling party couldn’t even ensure the presence of 100 members in the House to meet the quorum whereas the minister who had to answer the queries related to his department in the question-hour session was facing the suspension of his assembly membership for not filing his return. He pointed out the quorum which the PA failed to meet and the chair adjourned the proceedings until today (Tuesday).

Two ruling party members, including Maulana Ilyas Chinioti and Ghulam Nizamuddin Sialvi sought permission to speak over some issue but the Speaker refused to give them floor as the quorum had been pointed out.

This is noteworthy that adjournment of session due to lack of quorum has become a routine in PA which is invoking severe criticism on the government from Opposition benches. Rana Arshed, the chief whip of Punjab Assembly has failed miserably on number of occasions to ensure quorum.