Lotas for football – No to turncoats

LAHORE – The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML – Q) joined hands against the Unification Bloc and staged a protest against the politics of turncoats, outside the Punjab Assembly on Friday.
The protestors ridiculed turncoats outside the assembly and sloganeered against the Unification Bloc for more than an hour. The PPP-backed opposition leader, Raja Riaz, specially presented a ‘lota’ (a spherical water vessel that symbolises turncoats) to the PML-Q leader and former opposition leader Chaudhry Zaheer Uddin, while both parties’ female legislators reciprocally chanted slogans against PML-N-backed Unification Bloc.
Raja Riaz said that PPP was not in a mood to move a no-confidence motion against Shahbaz Sharif even in Zaheer Uddin’s presence. The PPP lawmakers, soon after the party parliamentary meeting at the assembly cafeterias, took out plastic and mud ‘lotas’ from their vehicles and started playing with them to symbolically humiliate the Unification Bloc.
The PPP MPAs Shaukat Basra, Azma Bukhari, Faiza Malik, Sajida Mir and Nargis Faiz Awan, under Raja Riaz’s leadership, criticized the Punjab government for the alleged attempt to change the affiliations of PML-Q dissidents. PPP women legislators Azma Bukhari and Sajida Mir carried banners inscribed with humiliating slogans against Unification Bloc and ornaments resembling ‘lotas’.
Later PML-Q parliamentarians also joined them in the show and legislators from both sides not only broke the mud ‘lotas’ but also pledged that they will not let the Unification Bloc members speak in the house. They protested against PML-N for accepting the Unification Bloc at beginning of the provincial assembly’s session on Friday.
Samina Khawar Hayat, Amna Ulfat, Seemal Kamran and Dr Samiya Amjad were prominent among the PML-Q women participants of the game; soccer-played-with-lotas. They also wore small plastic ‘lotas’ on their fingers. They alleged that ‘lota’ manufacturing factory was producing turncoats in Kot Lakhpat and Sharif brothers were involved in the ‘malpractice.’
Chaudhary Zaheer said that PML-N’s government had become a minority after PPP’s separation and the chief minister should seek a fresh vote-of-confidence. Afterwards, Raja and Zaheer walked out of the business advisory committee and boycotted the proceeding as a protest against the Unification Bloc parliamentary leader Dr Tahir Ali Javaid’s presence in the meeting.
Both leaders told the media that they will not let the PML-N government do politics of turncoats and will not allow ‘Lotacracy’. Raja said that Sharif brothers had restarted the politics of 1988 and 1990, but this time democratic forces will not let them promote horse-trading. Zulfikar Gondal, PPP’s parliamentary leader, said PML-N had learnt nothing from the past.