The opposition members of the Punjab Assembly ended their boycott of the house after Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan tendered an apology for his biased behaviour towards them on Monday.
The joint opposition consisting of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), and Jamaat –e-Islami (JI) had boycotted the proceedings of the house against the partial attitude of the speaker, holding a symbolic session on the steps outside the house last week.
PTI lawmaker Mian Aslam Iqbal was given a shut-up call by the speaker when he protested against the speaker for not accommodating his question last week. Meanwhile, another PTI lawmaker Arif Abbasi pointed out that the quorum was incomplete, but the speaker ruled against his claim. However, the opposition did not accept the speaker’s rejection and said that the proceedings of the house were illegal. They had been staging their boycott since then.
The symbolic session on the stairs of the assembly under the chair of PTI’s lawmaker Dr Nausheen Hamid discussed the same agenda being discussed inside the assembly and passed a resolution against the derogatory remarks of the speaker, threatening to prolong their boycott if the speaker did not apologise.
On Monday, Speaker Rana Iqbal welcomed the opposition members back to the assembly when the session was in progress. “I feel sorry for that incident,” the speaker said, who is also the custodian of the house. He added that both the treasury and opposition must play their respective roles for strengthening democracy.
Earlier in the day, newly appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Hassaan Riaz was completely unable to provide answers related to his department during the question hour session.
While putting up a supplementary question, PML-N’s Raheel Khadim Hussain said that that the Government Nawaz Sharif Hospital, Sheranwala, was in very poor condition. She said that more than 70 percent posts of senior doctors lay vacant in the hospital that falls in the constituency of the health minister. “There are ten seats for anaesthetists in the trauma centre but only one is available there for the patients,” she said, adding that the miseries of patients will increas manifold when the sole anaesthetist retires within two months.
The parliamentary secretary was in the sheer embarrassment when Raheel Khadim Hussain asked him the exact figure of patients daily coming to the outpatient department of that hospital, and had nothing to say.
Moreover, ‘The Punjab Private Educational Institutions (promotion and regulation) (Amendment) Bill 2017’ was also passed in the house in the absence of the opposition as opposition members had not returned to the house till then.
