KP Assembly: Opp stages walkout as MPA disallowed to speak on Hayatabad operation

PESHAWAR: The opposition in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly staged a walkout on Tuesday as a mark of protest when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha wasn’t allowed to speak on the Hayatabad operation.

Earlier, fateha was offered in the House for the soul of the police official Qamar Alam, who was martyred in the fight with the terrorists during the operation in Hayatabad late Monday night. The lawmakers, including Sardar Hussain Babak, Khushdil Khan and Laiq Muhammad Khan of Awami National Party (ANP), Nighat Orakzai and Ahmad Karim Kundi of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Inayatullah Khan of Jamaat-e-Islami lauded the sacrifices of the police and security forces in the war against terrorism. They called for effective measures to root out militancy once and for all. “For how long we will condemn terrorist attacks, receive bodies and offer condolences,” asked Khushdil Khan. Sardar Hussain Babak questioned the role of the security agencies and said as to how the terrorists managed to live in the posh Hayatabad locality.

He lauded the sacrifices of the security forces, but said that compared to armed forces the police had meagre resources. Ahmad Kundi of the PPP also paid tributes to the security forces for combating terrorists and rendering sacrifices in the war on terror.

He said people from different walks of life rendered sacrifices, but only condemnation was not enough as effective measures were needed to curb militancy. The PPP legislator held military dictators responsible for promoting militancy and pushing the country to a point where war on terror had to be fought. He said the situation would not improve until and unless those responsible for pushing the country to the war were made accountable.

There should be across the board accountability of all irrespective of their affiliation to steer the country out of the crisis, he added. The joint opposition joined PML-N when its member from Abbottabad Aurangzeb Nalotha along with other party members staged a walkout from the House. Aurangzeb Nalotha said the government intentionally barred the PML-N from taking part in the debate. He said a treasury member pointed out the lack of quorum yesterday when he wanted to speak on price-hike and the practice was repeated on Tuesday when he took the floor to speak on Hayatabad incident.

The treasury and opposition members exchanged hot words when Arbab Jahandad of PTI pointed out the lack of quorum.

Taking part in the debate on Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), Inayatullah said that KP did not get its due share and timely release of funds always remained an issue. Giving the details of yearly release, he said that KP received Rs41 billion out of the total allocations of Rs238 billion in the fiscal year 2017-18 which is just 17 percent.

He said the 2016-17 release was Rs60 billion out of Rs186 billion, 2015-16 was Rs62 billion out of Rs159 billion, in 2014-15 Rs52 billion were released to KP out of its share of Rs72 billion and in 2013-14 Rs46 billion were released of the total Rs86 billion. “This meant the percentage of released amount to the province during the last five years remained 35 percent,” he added.

He asked the government to explain how much it had received during the current year.

Senior Minister Atif Khan assured the House that the government would get its share in PSDP. However, he said allocations were made in documents but actually the federal government lacked funds to release to the provinces. He agreed with the suggestion of Ahmad Kundi that KP should seek representation in the board of directors in different federal divisions. He said as the PTI was in power at both the centre and in the province, efforts would be made to get representations in federal departments. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Youth Development Commission Bill, 2019 was passed while the KP Charities Bill, 2019 was introduced in the House before Deputy Speaker Mehmood Jan, who presided over the session, adjourned the assembly till April 23 when the protesting opposition lawmakers did not return to the House.