Shoes, chairs and insults were among the few things that were hurled at Punjab Assembly members on Thursday, as the assembly session turned violent, following the suspension of Unification Bloc member Sheikh Allaudin and opposition MPA Seemal Kamran for logging in the most points in the insults column.
The MPAs will remain suspended until the conclusion of the current assembly session.
The Punjab Assembly proceedings had been marred by the same behaviour on Wednesday when assembly members from the treasury and the opposition threw shoes and objectionable comments at each other, which later, had to be removed from the official assembly records.
The situation worsened when the opposition leaders began chanting anti-government slogans and later walking out of the assembly, despite receiving warnings against doing so by the assembly speaker.
Following the walkout, the Punjab Assembly passed 43 grant demands on Wednesday.
Later, Abdul Razzaq Dhillon retaliated to the female opposition members’ protest by passing remarks against Seemal Kamran and Majida Zaidi, among others who had been vocal of their criticism of the Punjab chief minister’s presence in the assembly.
Never one to be left behind, Sheikh Allaudin, who has, in the past passed insulting comments on female MPAs, began using objectionable language. He called the female opposition members ‘circus dancers’ who were unaware of their rightful place.
His comments fanned the fire on an already volatile situation, with Allaudin inviting criticism from his colleagues. A verbal war followed, in the heat of which a female treasury member threw a shoe at the opposition members. Seemal Kamran reacted by throwing her shoe at Allaudin, which hit another elderly MPA instead.
Thursday’s proceedings too were not without their moments, as Kamran fell unconscious after protesting outside the Punjab Assembly for four hours against being denied entry into the assembly.
On arriving at the Punjab Assembly, Seemal Kamran was stopped by the assembly guards who said they were acting under the orders of Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal. Seemal Kamran said she had not received any written orders that barred her entry into the assembly.
Her colleagues from the PML-Q later consoled Kamran who was visibly upset and started crying over being denied entry. Other opposition members then joined Kamran as she protested against the act, with many female members shoving the guards in their attempts to enter the assembly.
Kamran later fainted, after which Rescue 1122 was called on the scene to shift her to a local hospital.
Kamran said the female MPAs had been abused for the last four years, but the chief minister and the speaker were seemingly helpless in controlling the situation. She stated that her treatment at the hands of the assembly guards was shameful and that Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah and Speaker Rana Iqbal were responsible for her mistreatment.
The female PML-Q MPAs then went to register a case against Sheikh Allaudin with the Qila Gujjar Singh police station.
Inside the assembly, the opposition members protested against the restrictions slapped on Seemal Kamran.
The assembly members threw chairs at each other, grabbed each other’s collars, while liberally throwing punches, forcing the speaker to adjourn the session for fifteen minutes.
The situation took a turn for the worse after the break as a fight was initiated by the female PML-N members after PML-Q member Samina Khawar expressed her desire to speak in favour of Kamran and was stopped by PML-N MPA Rana Arshad.
The speaker tried in vain to diffuse the situation.
Opposition leader Raja Riaz also joined the fray by holding the speaker responsible for the chaos and for being non neutral. Wishing to set the record straight, he added that PML-N’s Anjum Safdar threw the shoe first and not Kamran.
However, despite the chaos in the assembly, the legislative body stayed right on track with regards to its agenda and passed the Bill for 2012-13.
Of lawmakers and their right hand swings
