ISLAMABAD: After a successful negotiation between treasury and opposition, the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser on Thursday allowed the seven members to come to the House whom he had barred from entering the precinct of the Parliament House, on Wednesday.

According to the sources, at the same time, the opposition parties also decided not to push the no confidence motion against National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri.

The NA speaker had barred seven MNAs including three from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from entering the House, after they threw budget books and hurled expletives at each other during Wednesday’s session.

All the seven MNAs attended the NA session on Thursday and the House proceedings were conducted in a cordial environment, as no hooting and whistle-blowing was witnessed from the treasury side, despite a hard-hitting speech by the opposition leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif, who opened the debate on budget.

Later, talking to the media outside the Parliament, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak along with Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the government and opposition had come to an agreement to ensure the smooth running of National Assembly sessions.

Khattak said a ‘consensus’ was reached in a meeting with the opposition and a proposal was devised which would be elaborated upon by Qaiser later.

“The decision has been taken to run assemblies smoothly and respect each other. The members have to use appropriate language, cursing should be refrained from, efforts should be made to avoid a ruckus, and no one should rise from their seats, so there is no fighting or discord,” he said.

Khattak told that during the meeting it was recommended that a committee be formed to discuss granting more powers to the NA speaker to ensure that he is able to effectively control any disruptive environment in the future.

“I am hopeful that we had a very good meeting and the effort will be that the assembly runs smoothly today, let the opposition leader speak and people from our side speak as well, so the message is sent that we parliamentarians work for the country’s betterment and condemn whatever happened,” the defence minister said.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said under the defence minister’s leadership, the PTI lawmakers Asad Umar, Ali Muhammad Khan, Amir Dogar, and himself were part of the government’s team.

He said from the opposition, the PML-N lawmakers Rana Sanaullah, Ayaz Sadiq, and Rana Tanveer, and PPP MNAs Raja Pervez Ashraf and Shazia Marri were present during the meeting.

He said there was a discussion on ‘all matters’ and it was agreed that rowdiness in the National Assembly sessions had debased the Parliament, and caused embarrassment for the parliamentarians.

While talking to the media representatives in the Parliament House on Thursday, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser said maintaining decorum during the proceedings in the House is the collective responsibility of both treasury and opposition benches.

He said collective efforts were imperative to uphold parliamentary norms in the House and to stop reoccurrence of such incidents.

Responding to questions of media persons, the speaker said being custodian of the House, he took action against seven members of the National Assembly irrespective of party affiliations.

He said members of the National Assembly being public representatives, require upholding moral values as people follow them.

He further said these unpleasant incidents during the proceedings of the House warn us to be careful in our attitude otherwise, these would set bad traditions for our next generations.

He also mentioned that he telephonically discussed the situation with Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to normalise the tensed environment in the House.

He mentioned that substantive number of hours were allocated to opposition benches in the House debate that were more than two hours allocated to Treasury benches during last year’s proceedings of the House.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021