ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: Tear up Punjab in three and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in up to four: This is what some lawmakers seeking new provinces thought would be a panacea for regional deprivations as a debate in the National Assembly made a controversial start on Thursday, with the main Pakhtun nationalist party walking out rather hearing calls for a disintegration of its heartland.

Sentiments seemed to prevail over rules as the discussion sought by the government-allied Muttahida Qaumi Movement was allowed even without a resolution sponsored by it, demanding creation of at least two new provinces, being formally moved and put on the day`s agenda, though it was orally agreed in a so-called `sense of the house` taken on Tuesday with the backing of the ruling Pakistan People`s Party and a personal go-ahead from Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

There was no explanation why the resolution was not formally moved by its sponsors or put on the agenda, although Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi assured the MQM at the start of the proceedings that the debate on its resolution would be held after the day`s question hour.

But objections by the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N and the government-allied Awami National Party, which heads the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa coalition government, to holding the debate without the resolution being moved or put on the agenda led to a turmoil and suspension of proceedings for 20 minutes to allow parties to agree on a way-out, which seemed missing when the house reassembled and the chair ordered resumptionof the debate, only to face a walkout by what could be the most-affected party.

As soon as the chair asked MQM parliamentary leader and Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Farooq Sattar to resume his speech that was disrupted by an earlier furore, ANP chief Asfandyar Wali stormed out of the house with other party members, saying he had no option but to walk out because the proceedings were being held against parllamentary rules, as was done earlier by a veteran PPP lawmaker from Sindh, Zafar Ali Shah when Mr Sattar was first given the floor.

But the PML-N, which raised most vociferous objections to the debate, with its opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan accusing the MQM of `dadagiri` (bullying) that he said would not work `in this house` and advising the deputy speaker not to chair the debate because of his obvious views supporting inclusion of his Dera Ismail Khan district in a Seraiki province, stayed in the house.

And senior PML-N leader Sardar Mahtab Khan, who hails from Hazara division, reiterated the party position that it was not opposed to creating new provinces but asked all parties to sit together to settle a serious issue that required amendments to the Constitution, rather using it as a political gimmick.

The MQM resolution, debate on which will resume on Friday when the house meets at 10am for probably the last day of the present session, calls for the creation of only two new provinces -one comprising 23 districts of Seraikispeaking southern Punjab and the other of seven districts of Hazara division in the east of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

But when it came to debate, there were no holds barred,with some first-time members calling for carving out still more provinces mainly from two of the existing four, and the MQM, accused of playing gimmicks and criticised by its opponents for demanding division of provinces where it has no representation, offering an unconditional support of its 25 members in the lower house to any group seeking more provinces as a cure of their alleged neglect by Lahore in Punjab or Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The other ideas advanced in the debate included a revival of former Bahawalpur province, which would otherwise be part of a Seraiki province in the first-preferred scheme, and, what could prove to be `most unkindest cut of all`as William Shakespeare said for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the proposed prospect of not only losing six districts of mainly nonPakhtun Hazara division, but also six districts of Pakhtun Malakand division as a separate province, two districts of Dera Ismail Khan division joining a Seraiki province, and adjoining seven agencies of purely Pakhtun and least populated Fata making a separate provincial entity rather than joining what Pakhtun, or Pashtun, nationalists see as a collective `Pashtun watan` The ANP chief seemed agitated as he announced the walkout after apparently finding coalition leader PPP unable to persuade the MQM to put off the debate until Friday to let the matter come on the agenda and was later reported in an official statement to have discussed the prevailing political situation with President Asif Ali Zardari.

And in a talk to reporters outside the house, after the walkout, he referred to an unexplained `ultimate tar-get` of the MQM, which he said `we will not allow` (to happen).

Though the MQM, which draws its support mainly from Urdu-speaking population of Karachi and Hyderabad, has repeatedly vowed publicly its faith in a united Sindh, but some critics fear the party could actually be harbouring an ultimate goal of a separate Urdu-speaking province, as evident from a warning by PPP veteran Zafar Ali Shah in a speech in the house on Tuesday against creating what he called a Northern Irelandlike situation in Karachi.

But despite some apparently amusing suggestions, there was no demand for carving out new provinces from either Sindh or Balochistan.

A first-time lawmaker of opposition Jamiat Ulema-iIslam from Hazara, Laeeg Mohmmad Khan, seemed believing that royalty from the country`s main multi-purpose dam on the Indus at Tarbela would automatically come to a future Hazara province as he said: `We don`t want gas, we don`t want electricity, we only want Hazara province.

But that may not so, as acknowledged by a young PML-N lawmaker from Hazara, Capt (Retd) Safdar, a son-in-law of party chief Nawaz Sharif, who vowed to take Swabi district as well, which is not part of Hazara division now but which houses Tarbela dam`s headworks, which gives the constitutional entitlement to a province for royalty.

Mr Safdar had even more apparently wilder wishes such as including some districts of Malakand division in Hazara as well as the divided Jammu and Kashmir state, which he said was once part of Hazara, though conversely some Kashmiri politicians often cite Hazara as once being part of Kashmir.