Floor crossing in Sindh: PTI MPAs protest as two ‘rebels’ sit on treasury benches

KARACHI: The Monday’s session of the Sindh Assembly once again saw tempers flaring up between the legislators of the treasury and those of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as the latter resorted to a strong protest, raised loud slogans and tore up copies of the assembly’s agenda against the presence of the two ‘renegade’ legislators of the party on the treasury benches.

This led to an exchange of barbs from both sides of the aisle in the House amidst sloganeering, which raised quite an uproar. The PTI legislators lambasted the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for letting the two renegade PTI lawmakers, who had announced voting against party lines in the recent Senate elections, sit on the treasury benches. A heated exchange of remarks took place between the opposition and treasury legislators. The PTI lawmakers also raised the slogans “Lota, Lota” when the two renegade MPAs, Shahryar Khan Shar and Aslam Abro, entered the House. They also placed posters containing the picture of ‘Lota’ on their seats.

PTI MPA Khurrum Sher Zaman complained to the speaker that it was wrong to allow the two MPAs of his party sit on the treasury benches. He said they would also complain to the Election Commission of Pakistan against the floor-crossing by the two PTI members. As the tempers flared up during the commotion, the PTI legislators went ahead to the speaker’s rostrum to register their protest. During the PTI’s protest, one of the leaders tore up the copies of the assembly’s agenda and addressed the chair angrily, irritating the speaker. Reacting to the situation, Speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani said the opposition legislators do not follow the assembly rules and wanted to vitiate the provincial assembly’s environment. During the entire episode, the PPP women legislators stood by the Sindh Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla who was injured during the last week’s fracas after the PTI MPs switched sides to the PPP ahead of the Senate election.

Chawla said that nobody knew with certainty about the exact number of dishonest members of the House as the opposition lawmakers did not have the courage to expel all of them from the assembly. The speaker had to adjourn the proceedings of the house for 10 minutes owing to continuing commotion during the proceedings due to the noisy protest by the opposition.