Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Thursday urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to turn up in the Parliament to clarify his statement in the National Assembly about the money trail for his family's assets abroad, which he changed altogether before the Supreme Court in the Panama Leaks case. Speaking on a privilege motion in the National Assembly, PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that there is a clear contradiction in a previous statement of the Prime Minister in the National Assembly on Panama Papers revelations and the one submitted by his lawyer in the Supreme Court. "We need clarification on whether what the Prime minister said on the floor of the House was the truth or the one he presented before the Supreme Court was the truth," he said.
Ruckus continued in the Lower House on the second consecutive day with chaos erupting soon after Qureshi stood up to speak on his party's privilege motion moved against the Prime Minister and addressed the Speaker as "Mr Ayaz Sadiq."
"I would have presented my viewpoint on the privilege motion submitted by my party if you had given me 10 minutes after Leader of Opposition Khursheed Shah had spoken yesterday," he said. It is prime responsibility of the Speaker National Assembly to protect rights of the opposition members, he said, adding that he was expecting the Speaker yesterday to intervene and allow him to speak, but unfortunately it didn't happen.
Qureshi said the Speaker had come under pressure of the ruling party that gagged him. "I will refer to you as 'Speaker' if you act as neutral, but will address you as 'Mr Ayaz Sadiq' if you gag me under the government's pressure," he said. "I never disrespected you as the Speaker. I never wanted to address you like I did yesterday. I was dragged and forced in that corner to address you as 'Mr Ayaz Sadiq'," he further said.
Referring to Federal Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique's earlier comments, wherein he called the PTI lawmakers as 'hooligans', he said, "The Minister of Railways referred to our protest yesterday as noise by 'PTI's hooligans'. This is all on record and it's all over the news."
The Speaker, however, said that the specific comment was not in his knowledge, but would expunge the word 'hooligans' from the Wednesday's proceedings if it was uttered. Shah Mahmood Qureshi demanded the minister to apologise for his comments; otherwise he would not be allowed to speak on the floor of the House. "Saad Rafique should apologise for his comments or else he won't be allowed to speak," he added.
Speaking on the privilege motion, he accused the Speaker of trashing his party's privilege motion against the Prime Minister without listening to them. "In our opinion, our privilege motion was legitimate and the Speaker should not have rejected it through a ruling," he said, adding the Speaker rejected it without giving them a chance to explain.
Clarifying his position, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq said he is an elected member and it is his duty to remain unbiased in his role as the Speaker of the House. "I always try to be as fair as possible. I do everything in accordance with the law and the Constitution," the Speaker added.
Jamaat-e-Islami member Sahibzada Tariqullah said that his party presented three separate bills in the National Assembly to strengthen laws to eliminate corruption, but the government failed to form a parliamentary committee to review these bills despite a promise in this regard by Law Minister Zahid Hamid.
"This shows non-seriousness of the government about elimination of corruption in the country," he said, adding that his party would mobilise the masses on the issue as they know they would never get justice from the present dispensation. The session of the House started with a delay of two hours as the government and opposition remained busy in the Speaker Chamber to get out a way to run the National Assembly smoothly.