Opp tickled pink by PPP ministers’ ‘honest’ blunders

Karachi
The stress of squeezing in a candidate just before the senate election seemed to have gotten the better of two key players of the treasury benches, provincial ministers Sharjeel Memon and Manzoor Wassan, who while addressing the House made political gaffes one after the other, much to the amusement [read satisfaction] of the opposition lawmakers.
Sindh minister for prisons, anti-corruption, and mines and minerals, Manzoor Hussain Wassan, was the first to make a blunder.
He was responding to questions pertaining to the provincial anti-corruption department when he uttered: “Jitna hosakta hay, hukoomat corruption karnay ki koshish karahi hay [the government is trying to do as much corruption as it can]”.
Roaring laughter erupted from the opposition benches and leader of opposition, Shahrayar Khan Mahar of Pakistan Muslim League-Functional could not resist “congratulating” the minister for “speaking the truth for the first time” while a bewildered Wassan and Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani attempted to clarify the statement.
The treasury benches had barely recovered from the embarrassment when none other than, the vocal and ever-active minister for information and local government, Sharjeel Inam Memon, rubbed salt in their wounds by his slip of tongue.
Welcoming the returning PPP MPA Asghar Ali Junejo in the House he said: “Peoples party hi hamesha election men dhaandli karti aayi hay [It is the Peoples Party that has always rigged the elections]” triggering another round of loud laughter from the opposition benches.
The information minister, however, did not need to be jibed to quickly clarify his statement and say what he had actually meant was that his party had always been at the receiving end of rigging in elections.
Since the earlier gaffe by Wassan hadn’t been officially clarified, later in the session chaired by deputy speaker Shehla Raza, he stated that he had made the remarks, which had by then been picked up by reporters and were being flashed across television screens, as an honest mistake. What he had been trying to say was that the government was trying its utmost to end corruption, he said.