The treasury benches opted for 'quorum-busting' tactic on Tuesday to successfully avoid a resolution on Reformed General Sale Tax (RGST), to be moved by a PML-Q bencher, which is seen rare on the private members' day and is against the parliamentary tradition.
It is rarely seen in the Punjab Assembly that the House is prematurely adjourned due to lack of quorum on private members' day. It is part of the parliamentary tradition that on the private members' day, any individual members of the House are given an opportunity to table a resolution or a bill, and no quorum-busting tactics would be deployed. However, both the PML-N and PPP broke that tradition to block the resolution on RGST, which was to be moved by Khalid Javed Asghar Garal of PML-Q.
From the very onset of the session, the treasury benches' body language suggested that they would not allow the proceeding beyond the House business (question-answer session on agriculture and adjournment motions). The treasury benches put a perfect theatrical performance with a drop seen of premature adjournment of the House.
Syed Hassan Murtaza of PPP was the main hero of the performance. On a point of order, he requested Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal to take up his adjournment motion out-of-turn, which in his opinion was very important. But, the Speaker denied his request on the pretext that the parliamentary leaders of all political parties in the business advisory committee have decided that no out-of-turn adjournment motion would be entertained. The hero of the day persisted with his request and in 'annoyance' he said is it his fault that the parliamentary leaders' have made such decision.
The Speaker kept on denying his request and thus in a 'desperation' the hero pointed out quorum; only after making melodramatic statement that if the parliamentary leaders bar him from his rightful request then he has the right to point out quorum.
The Speaker reminded the hero that since he is member of the treasury benches and it is a private members' day, he should desist from quorum-busting, but he insisted for the counting. Since only 55 members were present, the Speaker adjourned the House till Wednesday morning, leaving Khalid Javed Asghar Garal's resolution in doldrums.
Interestingly, just before the hero's point of order, some members of the treasury benches started to leave the House, apparently (in the words of the opposition benches) to ensure that the required quorum is not met when the count begins. The desperate opposition benches had only two words for the treasury benches, 'shame-shame.' Despite their protests, the Speaker had no choice but to follow the rules and showed helpless to the opposition benches.
Dr Samia Amjad of PML-Q accused the treasury benches of staging a drama to avoid the resolution. In her opinion, had voting on the resolution taken place, it would have exposed the stance of both PPP and PML-N on RGST. Other members of the opposition benches also held similar views.
In the past, quorum-busting had been the favourite game of the opposition benches; on a number of occasions, the treasury benches (with strength of over 250 members) had to face embarrassment in the hands of handful of opposition benchers. This time round, the opposition benches got the taste of its own medicine.
However, despite an understanding between two allied partied on denying the PML-Q of a resolution, earlier the PPP provincial ministers came hard on the PML-N government for not allowing creating hurdles in their working. Taking the advantage of PML-N Law Minister Rana Sanaulla, they attacked the government of denying the PPP ministers to work freely.
The hero of the day, Syed Hassan Murtaza set the ground for his party ministers to launch the assault. On a point of order, he complained that sugar mills were exploiting sugarcane growers. He said the millers are forcibly procuring sugarcane at lower rate and weighing 30 percent less, while the labour department is siding with the millers. He threatened to commit suicide if the issue is not addressed.
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