Bilawal, Qureshi trade barbs in NA debate

Ag APP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s criticism for each other turned personal as they delivered fiery speeches in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

It began when Bilawal excoriated the government, the “embarrassment” of a budget session and the Speaker Asad Qaider in a speech and left the House. After him, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz’s (PML-N) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi spoke, where he too criticised the government. After them, Qureshi responded and challenged Bilawal to return and listen to his rebuttal.

“Where did he go after making his speech? I want him to return,” he added. “I would like to ask Bilawal Bhutto to return to his seat. Come back to the field and listen to us now,” the Foreign Minister thundered from the treasury benches.

The opposition benches broke into applause when the PPP chairperson with another lawmaker by his side, returned to his seat. The foreign minister spoke briefly, but after immense criticism from the opposition benches, asked the speaker to let Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl MNA Asad Mehmood speak instead, and sat down.

Bilawal took a dig at the foreign minister, and suggested to the Prime Minister to tap Qureshi’s phone and cast aspersions on his loyalty. “When he used to be our foreign minister, he ran a campaign around the world to make him the prime minister, instead of Yousaf Raza Gillani,” he claimed. “That is why we sacked him from the post offoreign minister,” added the PPP leader. The foreign minister responded to the PPP leader’s accusations, telling him that he also knew Bilawal “since he was a little kid”. “I know you since you were a kid and I also know your father as well,” he added.

Speaking after Bhutto concluded his speech, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said he supported everything said by the PPP chairman.

Abbasi, like Bhutto, turned his guns on Speaker Asad Qaiser, criticising him for not honouring agreements with opposition members.

“We sit with you and reach agreements time and again but no attention is paid towards them,” he complained. The PML-N leader said that as per the rules of the House, whenever a vote is cast or recorded, it should be recounted as well.

Qureshi said the NA Speaker is the custodian of the House and “any attack on him is actually attack on the custodian of the House”. Commenting on Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s statement of avoiding to maintain parliamentary traditions by the government, Shah Mehmood Qureshi questioned why they were silent in Sindh Assembly when opposition had been stopped to involve in any democratic process.

He added unlike “undemocratic traditions” in Sindh Assembly, a “record time” was given to the opposition in all procedures of Finance Bill, 2021. He said opposition members “fully participated” in discussion on budget which was passed after completing all set rules and procedures in the National Assembly.

He said that country’s people were fully aware of the tactics of opposition parties. “They know how they looted the public money during the past dark-age time in their tenures,” he added.