ISLAMABAD: The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) buoyed by its "tax-free" budget, and the opposition armed with "no relief" to masses rhetoric, on Friday locked horns in the National Assembly over a number of contentious issues in the Federal Budget 2020-2021.
At the house holding a debate on Budget 2020-2021, Amjad Ali Khan Niazi of the PTI alleged that opposition must give up political hypocrisy towards Imran Khan as it was not going to pay off.
In the same breath, he continued that though late PPP leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a big man, his party men must not forget he was also accused of breaking the then East Pakistan [Bangladesh].
This infuriated the PPP lawmakers, who strongly protested over the remarks against their late leader, but the PTI leader retorted that PPP must not forget that it was PML-N which used to dub Asif Zardari - a former president - "Mr Ten Percent", and Raja Pervez Ashraf - a former prime minister - "Raja Rental".
He said that both the PPP and the PML-N, which left no stone unturned in maligning each others leadership, were now acting as if they were "blood brothers" and had joined hands against PM Imran Khan, which, he contended, was like building castles in the air, as the premier was there make the plunderers of national wealth accountable.
"Both PPP and PML-N wanted to rule turn by turn but Imran Khan said it's the turn of Pakistan now, and now he's there to hang thieves upside down, and no one will get any NRO [try for national reconciliation ordinance]," he maintained.
He said that Nawaz Sharif during his visit to India had refused to meet with the leadership of Kashmir, adding, PM Imran Khan had effectively projected the Kashmir issue at all the international forums.
The opposition expressed concern over missing "pink book", which they insisted was a key document of the budget.
They demanded that the Pink Book must be made available to the house.
Raja Pervez Ahsraf said that Rs70 billion was too meager an amount to deal with novel coronavirus, adding the country was "engulfed in the fire" of Covid-19, but you preferred to allocate Rs80 billion for dam construction.
He came down hard on the government for blaming the past regimes for destroying the economy, and said if the PTI had taken over in 1947 it would have definitely said "the Britons" left by destroying the economy.
Ashraf said that special financial measures were needed to deal with the coronavirus, adding under the present circumstances, unity and consensus were required in the ranks of all political parties to fight with the deadly virus.
He was of the view that being head of the government, it was responsibility of the prime minister to invite all the parties for devising comprehensive planning to defeat the pandemic.
Referring to the prime minister's visit to Sindh, he regretted that Imran Khan visited Sindh three months after the spread of the Covid-19 but did not bother to meet the chief minister.
He asked the government to bring back Pakistanis stranded in various parts of the world on its own expense and by hiring chartered aircrafts.
He said the government had abandoned the people of Pakistan who were facing the pandemic on their own, adding the government had surrendered before Covid-19.
Referring to the prime minister's statement regarding the need for reviewing the 18th constitutional amendment, he warned against any such move, stating that it would become difficult to run a federation.
He said that the government had not taken measures to construct five million houses as announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan during the election campaign.
He asked the government to increase the salary of the public sector employees.
PML-N MNA Riaz Hussain Pirzada said that nothing significant had been announced for the agriculture sector, and the missing "pink book" shows the government's intentions about how balanced its budget was.
He said that during the tenure of the PML-N government, land was acquired for the construction of mega dam projects.
He said, "this budget was in no way balanced and or people friendly as everything is quite suspicious in it."
Pirzada criticised the government for not providing any relief to the farmers in the budget, adding the government should provide fertilisers and electricity to the farmers at subsidised rates.
The National Assembly Speaker, Asad Qaiser, said that discussion on the federal budget 2020-2021 would be concluded on Wednesday.
In his remarks during the session of the National Assembly, he said 20 hours discussion had been held till date and the remaining 20 hours discussion would be completed by Wednesday.
He said that during Monday to Wednesday session, members of the government and opposition would get a chance to give their input on the budget.
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