Father, son deliver budget speeches same day as opposition leaders

LAHORE: A record was set in the history of the parliament on Thursday as a father and his son delivered the opening speeches in the National Assembly and the Punjab Assembly on the same day in the budget session as the opposition leaders.

Shehbaz Sharif, opposition leader in National Assembly, delivered his budget speech for the year 2021-22 in the NA, whereas his son Hamza Shehbaz opened the debate on Punjab budget for 2021-22 in the Punjab Assembly.

Shehbaz opened the post-budget session a couple of days ago but due to ruckus in the NA had to cut it short and interestingly delivered the detailed speech on the same day when his son Hamza delivered his opening speech in the Punjab Assembly.

This is noteworthy that it is the parliamentary tradition that the opposition leader delivers the opening speech in the post-budget session. Currently, Shehbaz Sharif is the opposition leader in NA whereas his son Hamza is the opposition leader in Punjab. Between 1993 and 1996, Shehbaz was the opposition leader in Punjab and his elder brother Nawaz Sharif was the opposition leader in the National Assembly. Hamza Shehbaz's speech in the PA grilled the government over its inability to control price hike and provide any relief to the common man. He termed the provincial budget nothing but a jugglery of words. In his opening speech on the floor of the Punjab Assembly in the post-budget session, Hamza said every citizen had nurtured hopes from the government in the budget but unfortunately the performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf narrated a different tale.