The National Assembly session Tuesday nearly came to physical blows during Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Shehbaz Sharif’s speech was met with loud jeers, slogans and whistles from the treasury members.
During the speech, opposition members formed a protective circle around the leader of the opposition in the lower house while MNAs from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf surrounded them.
“Imran Khan Niazi promised 10 million jobs. Where are those jobs?” asked Shehbaz. “Where are the $300bn that were supposed to be brought back to the country from abroad?”
Continuing to lash out at the government, he said that PM Imran Khan’s claims of eliminating corruption from Pakistan were hollow.
“Pakistan is suffering from the worst form of corruption today,” he said. “No act of posting or transferring someone these days is done without an element of corruption these days,” added Shahbaz.
He criticised the government’s budget, saying that it had failed to provide relief to the masses amid spiralling unemployment and inflation.
NA Speaker Asad Qaiser repeatedly asked the PTI members to calm down and allow the PML-N president to deliver his speech, but his words were ignored. Subsequently, Shehbaz reportedly wore headphones to drown out the noise and continued his speech.
Shehbaz called out the ruling party’s claims of generating excess power by pointing out the bane of loadshedding that troubled the masses currently. He compared this to the PML-N regime, which had set up various power plants to reduce the amount of loadshedding within the country.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Ali Nawaz Awan can be seen in a video clip from Tuesday’s session, responding in kind to abusive language by a PML-N lawmaker.
A woman lawmaker tried to pull the PTI MNA away from the group of legislators who were shoving each other. He can be seen in the video, throwing a booklet at the PML-N leader and shouting angrily at him.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry were also seen standing by their seats. Another minister, Ali Amin Gandapur can be seen in another video clip exchanging words with Opposition lawmakers.
A day earlier, Shehbaz had accused the incumbent government of showing false numbers in the release to trick the public.
The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly was speaking on the federal budget issued by the government a few days prior, Geo reported. Lamenting that the poor were suffering from poverty while the government claimed they were on the path to economic growth and prosperity, he asked, “If the country has seen growth, has only the elite and those residing in the palaces of Bani Gala availed that prosperity?”
The PML-N president said poor people were starving to death in the country. Taking a jibe at the prime minister, Sharif said he wished those who gave examples of Riyasat-e-Madinah would take pay heed to the dismal affairs of the “widows, orphans and the destitute”.
Members of the opposition, along with the PML-N president as well, thumped their desks as PML-N leader Mian Javed Latif attended the session for the first time since securing bail.
