At least 155 of the 168 provincial lawmakers took oath on Wednesday as the Sindh Assembly reassembled to witness one of the most unruly inaugural sessions in its history.
The speaker and deputy speaker, for which Pakistan People Party (PPP) leaders Agha Siraj Durrani and Shehla Raza are hot favourites given PPP’s recent announcement, would be elected on Thursday.
Former speaker Nisar Khuhro called for nominations papers against the two slots by 4pm on Wednesday. He said one-hour scrutiny would be made of the nominations papers.
Earlier, Khuhro administered oath to the legislators representing PPP, Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and others. Irfanullah Marwat of PML-N and Sher Zaman of PTI took the oath in English while others took oath in Urdu and Sindhi.
Prominent among those absent were Dr Ghulam Arbab Rahim of PML-N, Seema Zia of PTI and Shagufta Jumani of PPP. The house kept echoing with ear-splitting slogans as soon as the outgoing speaker Nisar Khuhro called order to the house at 10:55am.
Festive moods and hot mess
The newly-elected lawmakers signed the identity register one by one when Acting Secretary Ghulam Farooq called their names amid full-throated slogans raised by their supporters. There were several violations of the assembly’s Rules of Procedure with hundreds of supporters of various political parties interrupting the proceedings time and again.
Wednesday marked a mass political gathering at the PPP-dominated Sindh Assembly which was thronged by hundreds of what an analyst called “cheerleaders”.
The unruly scene at the assembly gate made it harder for the security officers to do their job. Long queues of people and vehicles were seen waiting to enter the assembly premises with security staff sarguing with the visitors for one reason or the other.
There was no room for the journalists’ vehicles inside the assembly as that of visitors had already occupied the available space. Inside the building things were equally unruly. Amid familiar shouts of “long live Bhutto” a new voice was added by the PTI workers who kept raising slogans in favour of Imran Khan and the PTI. The PPP replied to these slogans with some new slogans like, “Bhutto is the hero, all others are zero.”
The visitors
According to sources, the assembly secretariat had issued passes to over 4,000 people including visitors, journalists, VIPs and departmental staffers as late as Tuesday night. These passes were issued against a limited space of less than 200 seats in the visitors, diplomats, governor and media galleries.
Fearing a possible adverse reaction by the elected members, the assembly staff was compelled to issue over 1200 passes for the visitors who were seen stuffed in the visitors as well as press galleries.
The visitors gallery has a seating arrangement only for 70 people, sources revealed.
Over a thousand passes were issued for the press gallery while hardly over a hundred seats are available.
Over 500 single-entry passes were issued. For the diplomat and governor galleries, 300 passes were issued against a space of 24 persons. In addition to that, departmental staffers were also issued passes at least 600. The departmental staff, however, is not allowed to enter the house except for handing documents to their heads.
“Every MPA, on average, had requisitioned for 25 passes,” said another source privy to the matter. One PML-N MPA had asked for 35 passes, the source revealed, saying that even the PTI MPA-elect Hafeezuddin sent a list of 35 possible visitors.
Asked if the assembly’s Rules of Procedures allowed such mass issuance of passes, one analyst said the passes were ideally to be issued in accordance with the space available in the building.
Sindh Assembly will meet again on Thursday at 9:30am.