Islamabad: Pakistan's Parliament on Tuesday touched a new low when lawmakers from the treasury and Opposition hurled abuses and threw copies of official budget documents at each other, injuring one of the female members. The lower house of the Parliament, the National Assembly, was convened to hold a debate on the 2021-22 budget which was presented by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Friday.
The treasury benches began a noisy protest when Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif attempted to make the customary speech to open the forum for debate on the budget. Within no time, the house turned into a battlefield when some lawmakers came face to face, leading to an exchange of hot words, followed by abuses and finally threw copies of budget documents.
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A video clip of ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Ali Awan shouting expletives at the Opposition went viral on social media. At least one PTI female lawmaker, Maleka Bokhari, was provided treatment after a document hit on her eye but no serious damage was done. Shehbaz, the president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), later tweeted that PTI was a fascist party. "Today the whole nation saw on their TV screens how the ruling party resorted to hooliganism & even naked abuse. Only goes to show how ethically shallow Imran Khan and his whole party are and how PTI has turned into a fascist and abusive party. Unfortunate!" he tweeted.
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Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the PML-N was responsible for the unrest because one of its members used foul words which forced some members of PTI to react angrily. Interestingly, senior PTI leaders were smiling and even applauding their rowdy members for giving tough time to the leader of the opposition when he was making the speech. It seems to be a retaliation for the protest by the Opposition parties on Friday when Tarin was making the budget speech.
(PTI)
