Amid pandemonium in Senate: PTI female MP suspended for hurling abuse at Vawda

ISLAMABAD: Uproar erupted in the Senate Tuesday over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur’s remarks against women and PTI Senator Falak Naz’s alleged abusive language against independent lawmaker Faisal Vawda.

All went well by and large before the speeches of Leader of the Opposition Syed Shibli Faraz and Senator Vawda. At first, several members from the opposition side rose on their seats and started speaking, while Falak Naz, who was later suspended for two days, left her seat and came close to the chairman’s podium to protest Vawda’s speech.

Apparently, the chair wanted to provide an opportunity to the charged lady lawmaker to apologise to Vawda, but she did not pay heed to the offer. “Today those who refuse to talk to the army fall on their feet and apologise. If the speech [Gandapur’s] had not been about the mother, sister, daughter, then what happened yesterday would not have happened. They are the ones who ridiculed the martyrs and resorted to May 9,” Vawda said. He asked Chairman Yusuf Raza Gillani to call for the sergeant-at-arms to arrest the PTI lady senator and throw her out while insisting on her suspension for three years.

At one stage, there was total chaos and amid this pandemonium, the chair announced suspension and adjourned the House till Thursday.

Addressing the PTI, Vawda contended that if you would not have talked about breaking the country, then “we would have stood with you; you are those who came to the government through Faiz Hameed”.

Vawda said that leaders all over the world give an environment; the army chief gave an environment to his organisation; General Asim Munir has started accountability of his general, and under this benchmark, there should be accountability of everyone.

He criticised the PTI founder and said that till recently, the party leadership was against NAB amendments, today they took relief from the same amendments. He came hard on Imran for his announcement of Tuesday to close the doors of negotiations with the establishment.

Senator Vawda further said that today they are saying they are not ready to talk to the army, while (they) beg for talks behind the door. He dared Gandapur to come to Islamabad, Punjab or Sindh, saying he would be hung by his long hair and turned from Mr Gandapur to Miss Gandapur.

He alleged that from Imran to General Faiz Hameed to Murad Saeed and everyone who counts, knew what was going to happen to Arshad Sharif, the poor soul was sacrificed for their own politics. His remarks further ignited agitation from the PTI legislators.

Earlier, Vawda regretted the statements related to Maryam Nawaz made in the PTI rally by Gandapur and said that “you abuse our mother and sister, will we tolerate it? Today it is the turn of Maryam Nawaz, tomorrow it will be the turn of our mother and sister.”

At this juncture, Falak Naz allegedly addressed him with inappropriate words.

Before Vawda, Senator Shibli raised the matter of arrest of some of his party members of the National Assembly and called it a disgrace to parliament, elected representatives of the people and a breach of their privilege. “The spectacle which was staged outside parliament, seen by entire Pakistan, is disrespect to our lawmakers and is highly condemnable. It was as if parliament is a den of criminals,” the leader of the opposition remarked. He decried the fact that no one from the treasury benches had condemned the incident and it shows they endorsed it.

Shibli said today these major parties had been reduced to this level and today they do legislation for their own interests, giving little importance to masses. “Today parliament has been made such a forum where little attention is paid to issues of public,” he charged.

He wished the Senate should have passed a resolution to condemn what had happened to the members of the Lower House. Citing the recent law to allegedly target the PTI and Imran, he said it appeared “you will again spring a rabbit from your hat all of a sudden”.