- Parliamentarians brace themselves for a turbulent budget with PTI’s stalwarts all set to give PML-N a hard time during the discussion on largest provincial budget
The parliamentary leaders have finalised their budget strategies separately, promising a highly turbulent budget session starting from Friday (today) when the provincial finance minister would unveil the largest provincial budget for 2014-15.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), already highly charged and determined to pull the rug from under the feet of the government, is going to lead the show, testing the abilities of Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah and his counter-strategies for an upper hand on this important occasion.
It is learnt that benefitting from the presence of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in the house – which in itself is a rare moment for all the parliamentarians – the PTI would register its protest against the ongoing load shedding in the province. A token walk-out during the budget speech or prior to it cannot be ruled out, sources say.
Keeping alive the issue of load shedding, PTI has already set up a camp outside the assembly where they record their protest on daily basis.
The protesting MPAs and leaders the other day extended invitation to Shahbaz to join their ranks, probably paying the PML-N leader in the same coin, reminding him the time when he used to adopt similar tactics against PPP government to highlight the power outages in the country.
The MPAs from PML-Q also held their meeting in assembly and finalised their plan of action to challenge the treasury benches. The party officials disclosed that the party leadership had collected all the data of economic activity and performance of the government in the last six years.
“We will challenge the government with the help of figures and facts,” Chaudhry Zaheer commented.
“We are not going to discuss in the budget session government performance only during the last one year. Rather we will hold it accountable for the last six years,” he added.
Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Mahmoodur Rasheed has contacted other parliamentary leaders to forge a joint strategy during the session at least to the extent of highlighting issues common to all parties.
The PPP parliamentary party too assured him its fullest cooperation. The PPP leadership has made it clear to record its protest both inside and outside assembly if the budget failed to redress the concerns of poor sections of the society. It has already expressed its reservations over the meager increase in the salaries of government employees.
Similarly, JI also wants the government to address the lawlessness and creeping moral degradation in the society through budgetary means.
