News Desk |
Protests before the Sindh assembly by three opposition parties entered into their eighth day as opposition parties announced a two-day complete boycott of the session and staged a protest outside the assembly on Tuesday, March 12. The protest is for the Chairmanship of Public Accounts committee, which the Sindh government has refused to bestow to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), the main opposition in the province.
PTI, MQM Pakistan and Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) lawmakers are protesting outside the assembly. PTI lawmaker Shamim Naqvi said that the PTI will not let the nepotistic governance prevail. Khwaja Izhar Ul Hasan, former leader of the opposition of the Sindh Assembly, said that the opposition is trying to bring irregularities of the Sindh government to light.
The opposition leader had been under the custody of NAB at the time and had to be produced before the assembly every time a session of PAC had to commence.Â
GDA leader Hasnain Mirza said that the government has commenced the assembly to keep the ruckus of the nabbed speaker alive but not to discuss matters of public interest. He also said that the auditor general’s report has brought serious discrepancies forward. PTI lawmaker Khurram Sher Zaman said that the Sindh government is afraid that if the opposition gets the PAC chair, the government’s dirty secrets will be made public.
The protests started on Tuesday, March 5th, 2019, entering into their first week today. The house had witnessed on Thursday, the third day of the protest, an intense proceedings when a number of opposition lawmakers, chiefly belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, had allegedly attacked the sole member of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal Abdul Rasheed.
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Mr. Rasheed was moving a privilege motion against the Leader of the Opposition Firdous Shamim Naqvi for an earlier confrontation in which the former had called the members of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan and the MMA as proxies of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party.
On Friday, the house soon witnessed raucous chants and thumping of desks from the opposition benches when Deputy Speaker Rehana Laghari did not allow a PTI member to speak on a point of order before Question Hour. She asked him to speak after the day’s business was over.
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The PAC Chairmanship for the national public accounts committee had been a point of conflict as well, where the PTI government had been pressurized into nominating the PML-N President and leader of opposition Mian Shahbaz Sharif as the head of Public Accounts. The opposition leader had been under the custody of NAB at the time and had to be produced before the assembly every time a session of PAC had to commence.