Imran Khan’s third marriage stirs controversy in Punjab Assembly

• Minister advises every lawmaker to get married three or four times

• Public health engineering minister admits south Punjab is ‘deprived region’

LAHORE: The third marriage of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan stirred an argument in the Punjab Assembly on Monday when Provincial Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering, Syed Haroon Sultan Bokhari in a sarcastic tone advised that every parliamentarian should get married for the third or fourth time.

As per the details, an MPA of PTI, Shunila Ruth raised a question that how many recreational parks in Lahore were being used for marriage ceremonies. While admitting that several parks in the city were being used for the purpose, the minister advised that every lawmaker should marry three or four times. The statement of the minister incited the sentiments of many PTI MPAs sitting on the opposition benches and an MPA of PTI from Faisalabad Khurram Shehzad stood at his seat while counting the several alleged marriages of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. It prompted the speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal and he reprimanded Shahzad while asking him to take his seat.

Earlier in the day, the minister for housing, urban development and public health engineering miserably failed to answer the queries of the lawmakers and continued to give lengthy, irrelevant answers instead of replying with apt answers to the parliamentarians during the question hour. An MPA from Rawalpindi Asif Mehmood recorded his protest and said that the department of housing, urban development and public health engineering submitted the same answer to his question four months ago.

“The minister at that time said he would seek the correct answer from the department and now we have been provided with the same, incorrect answer after four months,” he said.

“Mr Speaker, you are the custodian of this august house and should resolve this matter as I did not get the answer related to my own constituency of Rawalpindi,” Mehmood added.

Mehmood’s stance was also supported by the MPAs of other parties as Faiza Malik of PPP spoke in his favor while saying that the concerned department must be grilled over the submission of wrong answers.

Parliamentary leader of Jamaate Islami Dr Waseem Akhtar asked the minister regarding the sewerage system for his native city of Bahawalpur and the minister in his answer admitted that south Punjab was the “most deprived part” of the province.

Shunila Ruth of PTI said that she would not ask supplementary questions anymore as the minister didn’t ever give relevant replies. The performance of the minister was not up to the mark and he even said that the lawmakers of the incumbent assembly do not ask quality questions, she added.

Haroon Sultan Bokhari, who got elected for the third consecutive term from Muzaffargarh and hails from a rich family of politicians, couldn’t satisfy a single lawmaker and gave irrelevant answers while Minister for Mines and Minerals Chaudhry Sher Ali, who was sitting beside Bokhari, could be seen stopping his colleague from giving irrelevant replies.

The treasury couldn’t take up the government business due to the lack of quorum that was pointed out by PTI’s Nabeela Hakim Ali and the session was adjourned till Tuesday morning.