Pandemonium in KP Assembly

PESHAWAR: Pandemonium marred the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly session on Monday as the joint opposition protested the speaker’s role and termed it partial.

Just after recitation from the Holy Quran, opposition leader in the House Akram Khan Durrani stood on a point of order. He took the floor even though the speaker had asked him to wait for the treasury benches whose members were not present in the House.

But Durrani continued to speak, saying the opposition grievances related to the custodian of the House. He said the speaker was not only too weak to ensure the presence of ministers but was following the dictates from the government and had failed to maintain his impartiality.

“Mr speaker! you adjourned the assembly session on January 14 till 27th and then adjourned it till to February 7, but again prorogued it sine die reading the governor’s order from home and did not bother to read out the order on the floor of the House. We tried our best to maintain the sanctity of the speaker’s chair but were compelled into protest due to your role. The opposition will not let the assembly proceedings run at any cost,” he added.

Durrani, who represents the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, said the protest would continue throughout the entire session and neither the ministers nor the speaker would be allowed to speak.

The legislator said the speaker even ignored the opposition requisitions twice and did not include the opposition points in the agenda. He said the speaker violated the assembly rules while adjourning the session sine die.

Members from the joint opposition circled the speaker’s dais and chanted slogans of ‘No to Speakergardy’ ‘atta and cheeni chor namanzoor’, ‘Shah Farman ka farman namanzoor’.

Speaker Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani had to adjourn the sitting for 10 minutes. However, he continued the proceedings after the break amid the opposition protest

He asked Law Minister Sultan Muhammad and Finance Minister Taimour Salim Jhagra to introduce the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Stamp (amendment) Ordinance, 2019; the KP Finance (Amendment) Ordinance 2019; the KP Universities (second amendment) Bill, 2020 and the Galiyat Development Authority (amendment) Bill, 2020 in the House.

The treasury benches reacted and chanted slogans. The law minister said they will not allow anyone to hit the sanctity of speaker chair. He said the treasury members would protect and defend the speaker.

Adjourning the session till Tuesday (today) 2 pm amid shouting from the opposition, the speak said it was condemnable that the opposition leader did not listen to his point and disturbed the proceedings.

Mushtaq Ghani said he will be forced into taking strict steps if the opposition did not change its behaviour. Later, addressing a press conference on the assembly lawn, Akram Khan Durrani said the speaker was not impartial and accused him of treating the opposition discriminately.

He said rules were not followed while adjourning the assembly session time and again. Neither the speaker nor the chief minister is paying heed to the House and its sanctity, he said adding the opposition was not staging a walkout from the House under a strategy not to leave the forum to the government.

The opposition leader said the ministers were not attending the sessions but the speaker had failed to act against them.

Durrani complained the opposition requisitions and agenda were ignored. He vowed to continue the protest and not let the assembly proceedings run. He warned of a protest at the Chief Minister’s House.