Punjab Assembly here on Tuesday gave approval to supplementary budget amid uproar over alleged rigging in Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly's elections. Only three cut motions were submitted by the opposition members against the excessive expenditures of Punjab Government during fiscal year 2010-11 under Relief, Police and Miscellaneous heads of account.
Opposition legislators Chaudhry Zaheer Uddin, Sardar Mohsin Leghari, Semal Kamran, Amir Sultan Cheema, Rai Shahjahan Kharal and syed Hassan Murtaza criticising the government for spending hefty amounts from provincial kitty without getting prior approval from Punjab Assembly.
Chaudhry Zaheer said that in the present circumstances when law & order was at its worst, it was disgusting to spend hefty amounts on Police. He added that on one side crime ratio was escalating with every passing day, while on the other ironically Punjab Government was disbursing millions of rupees among the incompetent security personals. He, however, said the police officials who scarified their lives in the line of was admirable but at the same time there was a dire need of launching an operation clean up in Police department to eliminate corrupt elements.
Replying to the objections raised by the opposition legislators, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sana Ullah averred that 98 per cent incidents of kidnapping for ransom related to terrorism and the criminals involved in the crime were traced from the tribal areas where the criminal nurseries had been working under the guise of 'Jehad'.
He pointed out that the dictators were responsible for growth of all these terrorism nurseries. Lamenting the dictators involved in this situation where law & order had deteriorated so much, Rana Sanaullah said that all the dictators should be brought into court of justice.
Law minister further said that directions had been issued to release Flood Inquiry Report on web site and Information department would upload the report on the official web site of the Punjab Government during the day. Earlier the House once again turned into fish market when Pakistan People's Party (PPP) backed Opposition leader Raja Riaz on a point of order said that Azad Jammu Kashmir election results have exposed the tall claims of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) having public support and public at large has rejected them.
Raja Riaz Ahmed said PML-N had utterly failed in Punjab and soon its so-called popularity graph would descend further. "The party PML-N leadership ran a mock for lust of power and time is not off when they will be out of power even from the Punjab province," he said. He regretted that "unscrupulous elements" were hell bent to "finish" the Punjab Assembly but he announced they would foil any such move with the support of masses.
He said PPP was a popular party and its leaders by sacrificing their lives had made it invincible. Opposition leader said Peoples Party had emerged as single majority party in AJK polls and hoped it would form government independently. However, he said other political parties would also be invited to join the government, as coalition partner.
He dilated the popularity graph of Asif Ali Zardari had gone high and it could be gauged from the results of AJK elections. Raja said that it was the failure of Punjab government that could not control situation at seven polling stations during AJK polls.
When Punjab Food minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor responded to the Raja Riaz allegations, Opposition members made extreme noise and chanted slogans. Chaudhry Ghafoor alleged that PPP caste 7000 fake votes in single constituency. Rana Arshad criticising PPP policies said that biased policies of federal government had forced the coalition partner to move away from federal government.
During the rumpus, Speaker did try to control the situation but agitating legislators from Treasury as well as Opposition remained involved in continuous mud slinging and blaming each other. During the session, Punjab Assembly also approved leaves of 25 members who could not attend the session owing to different reasons. Among those were legislators who had changed their affiliations and did not attend the assembly for the last several months. After the approval of supplementary budget, the chair prorogued the house indefinitely.
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