Opposition criticizes NA Speaker for silencing legislators
News Desk :
Opposition political parties have lashed out at the Speaker of National Assembly, Asad Qaiser for what they claimed the latter’s efforts to silence opposition lawmakers. Ahsan Iqbal, the Central leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) strongly criticized the speaker and called him a biased chair.
Qaiser wanted lawmakers to discuss the constitutional amendment bill the government plans to seek a vote on, but PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal in his speech said he was “challenging” the speaker to affirm whether the PML-N had gotten its share of the calling-attention notices and adjournment motions taken up in the last 2.5 years.
“The chair purposely ignores PML-N’s calling attention notices and adjournment motions,” he alleged, saying his party wanted to debate the rise in the prices of electricity and petrol, the LNG issue, and wheat and sugar scandals but wasn’t allowed to.
“I accept your challenge,” responded Qaiser, who invited Iqbal to visit his secretariat and verify how many notices and motions were submitted by the PML-N and subsequently taken up. “I have done everything according to merit,” he added.
Iqbal said “not a single” calling-attention notice had been taken in the ongoing parliamentary year, stressing that “this is not a scrap site that can be bulldozed.”
He claimed that during the PML-N era, opposition members were allowed to speak for even two hours on end.
“But here we feel like the opposition has been given the status of unwelcome members. […] Whenever we stand up, our mics are turned off,” he said. “This is not the PTI’s assembly, this is the National Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”
Iqbal asked Qaiser to use his authority justly, saying the speaker did not belong to anyone party.
