— No-trust motion against speaker dismissed, voting on one pending against deputy delayed
— Coordination secretary arrested, two assembly civil servants narrowly escape police raids on residences
LAHORE: A critical session of the Punjab Assembly — rescheduled from erstwhile May 30 by Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi — was postponed, for a third time, until June 6 after police, ostensibly on the direction of the Ministry of Interior, assumed control of the premises, preventing lawmakers from both sides of the aisle from entering the assembly.
Meanwhile, the no-confidence vote pending against Elahi was dismissed on technical grounds as no lawmaker from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), party which moved the motion when it was in opposition, was present in the House.
However, voting on the motion moved against Mazari, a dissident member of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), by his own party and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) on charges of defection to PML-N will be held on June 6.
The voting will be held through a secret ballot.
Elahi summoned the session on Saturday, a day after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) de-seated 25 dissident legislators belonging to the PTI party who had defected and voted for the PML-N vice president Hamza Shehbaz in the election for the office of Punjab chief minister last month.
The reference was filed by Elahi, requesting the electoral body to disqualify them for violating party discipline and deviating from its policy.
With these 25 lawmakers no longer members of the House, Shehbaz, who won with the help of the dissident legislators, has lost his majority in the Punjab Assembly, raising questions about the status of his government.
The session was scheduled for 12:30 pm but Elahi summoned lawmakers to arrive at the assembly half an hour before.
Security was beefed up outside the assembly and television footage showed a contingent of police equipped with riot control gear outside the gates.
ASSEMBLY SECRETARY ARRESTED
Ahead of the session, a member of the assembly bureaucracy, Rai Mumtaz Hussain Babar, was taken into police custody, according to a spokesperson for the assembly. It was not immediately clear on what charges the civil servant was taken into custody.
In a statement, the spokesperson said police entered the official residence of the coordination secretary at Bahawalpur House after scaling the walls.
He said that police also conducted a raid at the home of Assembly Secretary Muhammad Khan Bhatti, and Parliamentary Affairs and Research Director General Inayatullah Lak, but were unable to arrest the two.
Elahi condemned the “fascist” police action and claimed that it was being carried out on the orders of the prime minister.
“After violating the sanctity of the House, the government is making use of new tactics,” he said, adding the action against assembly bureaucracy was evidence the government was “panicking”.
