The legislators of ruling party and PML-N blamed each other for making reconciliatory contacts to reach an understanding during Punjab Assembly proceedings on Friday. This led to heated arguments between the Punjab Law Minister and Deputy Opposition Leader, but both did not let the cat out of the bag, thus keeping the rest of the House in the dark.
After the question-answer session on health department, a debate on Punjab Ombudsman Office Annual Report (2003) was about to take place, when Punjab Law Minister Muhammad Raja Basharat and Deputy Opposition Leader Rana Sanaullah engaged in a heated argument over recent secret meetings between the leaders of the two parties.
Both of them blamed each other for taking initiative to remove the differences. The House was baffled by the incident and was clueless of the actual facts.
Raja Basharat, on oath, informed the House the PML-N leaders were in contact with the ruling party for reconciliation. He also said he could pinpoint the time, date, place and the name of the persons who were in contact with his party leaders.
"The PML-N were ready to accept President Musharraf in uniform if the deal was struck between the two parties," he stated.
While strongly objecting to the revelations made by the Law Minister, Sanaullah averred he too on oath could say that his party was not willing to strike any deal with the 'unconstitutional and unlawful rulers'. He went on to saying "I also have the names of leading personalities of the 'king party' who held meetings with the Sharif brothers for reconciliation. The Law Minister should also inform the House about his meeting with Shahbaz Sharif during his visit to London," he added.
Basharat backfired at the Deputy Opposition Leader by accusing Shahbaz Sharif and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan for contacting the ruling party to strike a deal. The very remarks offended Sanaullah and in an aggressive tone he repeated, "None of his party leaders were trying to strike a deal with the government. In fact, Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid was creating confusion in this regard. The younger Sharif on record has categorically maintained that he highly respects his elder brother, hence he would not make any decision without taking him into confidence."
Rai Ejaz Ahmad, who was in the Speaker's chair at the time, interrupted the debate and made astonishing remarks "Since General Ziaul Haq was the founder of the PML-N, why the Nawaz group was against President Musharraf." That prompted Sanaullah to reply that when Nawaz Sharif was commencing his political career, the army was in power and it was no fault of his leader. He made it clear General Zia had created PML under the leadership of Muhammad Khan Junejo. Nawaz Sharif never accepted the dictates from non-democratic elements, and made sacrifices for refusing to bow before the establishment in 1993 and in 1999. Sanaullah maintained they would only respect those officers in uniform who were fulfilling their duties in accordance with the Constitution of the land.
Finding Sanaullah a hot potato to handle, provincial ministers Arshad Khan Lodhi, Rana Qasim Noon and Parliamentary Secretary Muhammad Waris Kallu ganged up with the Law Minister against the Deputy Opposition leader. They accused Shahbaz Sharif of sending messages to the ruling party's leaders to strike a deal and for that purpose he went to London.
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