The Sindh Assembly session was marred by a brief but noisy argument when Pakistan Muslim League-Functional member Nusrat Sehar Abbasi drew the speaker’s attention to an incomplete quorum in the 168-member house, especially convened to pay homage to Pakistan People Party (PPP) founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on his 84th birth anniversary.
The PPP lawmakers, however, felt it was discourteous on the part of coalition government’s legislator to raise the issue when PPP’s Dr Abdul Sattar Rajpar took the floor to pay tribute to late Bhutto at around 1:50 pm.
Senior PPP legislators, including Pir Mazharul Haq, Shazia Marri and Rafique Engineer, were quick in reminding Abbasi of the absence of her own party lawmakers, including former Opposition leader Jam Madad Ali.
“The chair of the Leader of Opposition is empty, so in a house where there is no opposition it would happen,” Haq asserted.
While Engineer termed it inappropriate to refer to quorum with the house in session to pay tribute to his great leader, Haq and Marri claimed that proceedings in the British House of Commons had even been seen continuing in the presence of two to five members.
Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro had to intervene when the PPP lawmakers started slamming the PML-F legislator. “Don’t refer to the ministers only, also talk of the members,” the speaker shouted when PPP’s Humera Alwani complained about the absence of ministers, most of whom were not on their seats.
“Let me inform the house that [currently] there are 43 members present in the house, but they might have not been there when pointed out [by Abbasi],” Khuhro said.
The speaker also asked Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro to look at the officers’ gallery where only half a dozen bureaucrats were in attendance.
Seemingly helpless, Soomro replied that he had brought the matter to the notice of the Sindh chief minister repeatedly but to no avail.
According to the journalists covering the Sindh Assembly session, the attendance of provincial lawmakers during the current session ranges from 50 to 60.
