Ruckus in Sindh PA as opposition accuses treasury of hurling abuses

By M Waqar Bhatti

January 31, 2019

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday witnessed pandemonium and chaos after the opposition alleged that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla had used an abusive word while the treasury members denied doing so.

The Speaker Sindh Assembly, Agha Siraj Durrani, assured the opposition that he would investigate if any member had used abusive language while issuing directives to expunge all the non-parliamentary words from the assembly proceedings.

Earlier, tension gripped the assembly session since the beginning on Wednesday when the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi questioned if there was any viral infection that makes politicians sick when they are sent to jails. The Speaker, Agha Siraj Durrani, termed the question invalid. At this, the members of the treasury benches tried to protest but the speaker disallowed them and askedArif Jatoi to sit down who refused and sought his permission to make a supplementary question.

This followed an uproar and pandemonium after arguments between the speaker and the opposition MPA, prompting Agha Siraj Durrani to say he would not be dictated by the opposition and he gave the ruling for the next question.

At this, the opposition started shouting and raising slogans while Arif Jatoi went in front of the speaker’s seat and started protesting. There was free of all and both sides of the parliamentary divide strongly criticised each other and blamed the other side of spoiling the assembly's environment.

Amidst the uproar and confusion, opposition leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi, along with some other opposition MPAs, claimed that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla has made a non-parliamentary and abusive remark against them.

Chawla instantly denied making any derogatory remark, however, it did little to satisfy the irate opposition members and all hell broke loose persuading the speaker to intervene and offer to investigate and expunging all the non-parliamentary remarks.