ISLAMABAD: In spite of the opposition’s best efforts, Wednesday’s sitting of the National Assembly was more sarcasm than substance.

The government continued to play to the gallery, fielding two of its merry backbenchers — Sheikh Fayyazuddin and Rana Mohammad Hayat — to counter the opposition’s more critical speeches.

While they generally had nothing but praise for the government, nearly all the government members who spoke on Wednesday had their own suggestions for Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, as well as a few bones of contention.

PML-N MNA Rana Afzaal Hussain called for reducing urea prices. He said that good-quality pesticide should be provided to farmers, while better seed research was needed to produce more resistant strains of crops.

Chaudhry Mohammad Munir Azhar, one of the treasury’s eldest members, lamented that most lawmakers were unaware of the problems of an agrarian economy, saying “city dwellers still think wheat grows on trees”.

Rana Mohammad Hayat called on the government to use some of its “bargain LNG” to manufacture more urea fertiliser so it could be made available at lower rates.

He also took issue with the imposition of more indirect taxes on goods at a time when global commodity prices were very low. “If you want to do this, maybe we should abandon agriculture and take up some other economic specialisation.”

Opening his speech with nisar mein teri galiyon pe aey watan, ke jahan chali hai rasm keh koi na sarr utha ke chalay, Mr Fayyazuddin maintained that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s only crime was being “too loyal to the nation”.

“Levelling criticism isn’t just the opposition’s right; it is their duty,” he said before asking for patience from the other side of the aisle. “The year 2018 isn’t far. I say, let the people decide who they want to rule them. This is the people’s right, not the right of any conspirators.”

He also had the house in fits when he insinuated that the farcical treasury-opposition dynamic of the budget speeches even had two brothers at odds with each other. “The other day, [PTI MNA] Asad Umar completely rubbished Mr Dar’s budget speech and called it a pack of lies. The same night, I saw [Privatisation Commission head] Mohammad Zubair on TV saying that this was a pro-Pakistan budget.”

“Mr Speaker, we should put them in your chamber with Shireen Mazari standing guard... and not let them out until they’ve decided which brother is in the right,” he concluded, to peals of laughter from both sides of the aisle.

But then he took the joke too far. While asking to lower the sales tax on agriculture machinery, he alluded to Khawaja Asif’s expunged remarks from earlier in the session when he mused: “I suggested to Jahangir Tareen that sales tax should be removed from both tractors and trolleys, but I don’t know why he didn’t support me.”

This led to giggles among the PML-N’s women members and Sheikh Fayyazuddin looked quite pleased with himself. However, both the opposition benches and Ms Mazari ignored the tasteless reference.

But Rana Mohammad Hayat Khan, the jovial MNA from Kasur, spared neither side in his speech. Opening with a request to the water and power minister to “return people to the pre-Ramazan [loadshedding] schedule”, he also reminded PPP members not to laugh too hard, “since it was loadshedding that got you ousted in the first place”.

Teasing the PPP over the party’s near absence from Punjab, he said that the only times a Bhutto had ruled Pakistan was when Punjab voted for the party. “The tragedy is, the people of Punjab even voted in Asif Ali Zardari,” he said, sarcastically.

He then chided the government for not understanding farmers’ needs, saying: “Not Ishaq Dar, not Khawaja Asif... they just don’t understand us.”

Illustrating his point, he said that everything needs water to grow. “You may have made electricity cheaper, but with on-the-hour loadshedding, how is the farmer supposed to run his tube well long enough to get the water he needs? I demand that at least 10 hours of uninterrupted power be ensured for every tube well.”

Before concluding, he also took issue with the price of milk. “Mr Speaker, what kind of poor family feeds its children imported [powdered] milk? Even though there is no limitation on the import of children’s milk, I demand that one be imposed!”

He contended that locally-produced milk contained 6-7pc fat content — even though the highest fat content ever recorded in milk from cows is around 5pc — while powdered milk was ‘weaker’ and contained only around 2-3pc fat.

“When complex-ridden women see their more well-off counterparts feeding their children powdered milk, they also start doing the same. It’s a fashion,” he insisted, while lawmakers burst out laughing.

While the PML-N tag-team got most of the laughs, it soon became clear that very few on the treasury benches were consulted in the budget-making process, hammering home the point the opposition was making all along.

Parliamentary Secretary for Finance Rana Mohammad Afzal Khan also informed the house that new cargo scanners had been installed at Port Qasim to scan US-bound export cargo containers.

Responding to a query raised a day earlier by Ms Mazari, he said there was no question of “selling out” the security of the port to the US, adding that after 9/11, it was common practice for all America-bound cargo to be scanned outside the US.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2016