The 25th session of Punjab Assembly was prorogued for indefinite period on Monday after remaining continued for more than one week. The completion of quorum remained a serious problem for the treasury benches throughout the session as the speaker had to adjourn the sitting multiple times because of lack of quorum.
It may be mentioned here that 94 members are required to complete the quorum in the house of 369, where ruling party has 312 members. During the 25th session, sitting of some specific days could last just for few minutes due to the quorum shortage, despite the fact that the Chief Whip and the Special Assistant to the Chief Minister, Rana Muhammad Arshad, had warned the lawmakers to make sure their presence in the house; otherwise, a strict action could be taken against them. He had also warned the parliamentary secretaries that they can be removed from their offices in case they remain absent from the house for three consecutive days.
“It was a great achievement for the government as seven bills were passed in the house during the session keeping in view the non-serious behaviour of the opposition members – who did not want us to pass those bills,” said Arshad. He further added that the next session of the assembly will be called in the second week of January next year.
Speaking on a point of order, ruling party lawmaker from Toba Tek Singh Amjad Ali Javed said that there is an acute shortage of finance in his district, and there is no money available to pay salaries to the government employees there. “Approval for the staff of two hospitals has been given, but they cannot be recruited due to the financial crisis my district is facing,” Javed said, and speaker Rana Iqbal instructed his staff to convey to the finance minister to look into the matter, as the finance minister was not present in the house.
PTI’s Shoaib Siddiqui said the government is creating hindrances in the way of water filtration plants that are being installed by the charity organisation of Abdul Aleem Khan in his constituency.
“The voters of my constituency are drinking unhygienic water, and we tried to install water filtration plants voluntarily, but the government officials are not allowing us to run these plants,” he said, while speaking on a point of order. He was of the view that it is being done on the orders of National Assembly (NA) Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq as he also won from the same constituency of NA from where Siddiqui got elected as MPA from Lahore. When he was being interrupted by speaker Rana Iqbal during his speech, Siddiqui pointed out the quorum that could not be completed by the government.
Earlier in the day, questions related to the irrigation department were answered by the Parliamentary Secretary Khalid Mehmood Jajja during the question-answer session.
Moreover, Leader of the Opposition Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed, while talking to media persons outside the Punjab Assembly, said that the festival of Basant has taken many lives in the past and government must not give permission to hold this festival.
