All the PTI women MPAs of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly continued their boycott of the proceedings of the house for the second consecutive day.
Out of the 22 women legislators, the ruling PTI has 10 MPAs and all of them are boycotting the proceedings of the house and complaining about the discriminatory attitude with them in development schemes and decision making and indifferent attitude of the provincial government.
On Thursday when the house resumed proceedings with Deputy Speaker Dr Meher Taj Roghani, who herself is a woman was asked by the women opposition MPAs for bringing the boycotting PTI MPAs into the house.
PML-N MPA Sobia Khan and Meraj Hamayun of the QWP and then male colleagues stood up jointly and asked the deputy speaker to bring the PTI women MPAs back to the house.
The deputy speaker said that she had tasked a provincial minister and QWP MPA Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli for holding negotiations with them. But, due to her absence from the house, she tasked Senior Minister Sikandar Hayat Sherpao to persuade the boycotting PTI legislators for participation in the house proceedings.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Maulana Lutf-ur-Rehman has called for the constitution of a house committee to conduct inquiry into the utilization of annual budget in the province. He said that on the occasion of the passage of the annual budget, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had made commitment with the opposition that their proposals in development schemes would be given weight and for this purpose a formal meeting would also be convened with them. However, despite the passage of the seven months of the current financial year, no such moot was convened.
He said that the government was providing development funds to treasury benches members while opposition was being pushed to the wall. He said that in budget, the government allocating token amount for various schemes, but later divert hefty funds for them.
For instance, he said the provincial government has recently announced Rs 3 billion huge publicity campaign and initially a fund of Rs 1 billion has also been allocated for it. He asked the government for telling about the source of the fund and utilization of the annual budget.
Shaukat Yousafzai, a PTI legislator termed the contentions of the opposition leader genuine, said that they support it. On this occasion, Sobia Khan of PML-N and Meraj Hamayun of QWP and other women legislators of opposition benches stood up to talk about the boycott of the house proceedings by the PTI women legislators. But, after the walkout of the joint opposition, the deputy speaker was left with no other option than adjourning the proceedings for Asr prayers and tea break.