• Ruckus in house after PPP chief questions legitimacy of finance bill amid vote controversy
• Imran alerted to get FM’s phone tapped
• 174 supplementary grants of past years worth Rs1.25tr approved

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on the last day of its 23-day budget session witnessed more fireworks when Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari exchanged barbs after the latter questioned the legitimacy of the Finance Bill 2021 passed by the house a day ago and accused the speaker of being biased.

There was complete ruckus in the house on Wednesday due to loud sloganeering from both treasury and opposition benches when Speaker Asad Qaiser once again gave floor to Mr Qureshi to respond to the PPP leadership, who had earlier blasted the minister on “a point of personal explanation”.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari alleged that when Mr Qureshi was the foreign minister in the previous PPP government, he ran a campaign at international level to become the Pakistan’s prime minister in place of Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. He said: “I request the prime minister to ask the ISI to tap Shah Mahmood’s telephone. When he was our foreign minister, he used to campaign in the world to replace him with Yousuf Raza Gilani as the prime minister. I am bringing the truth before you and this was the reason that he was booted out from the ministry,” the PPP chairman said.

“I knew him since my childhood and have seen him raising slogans of Jiye Bhutto and Agli Bari, Phir Zardari only for the sake of ministry,” said the PPP chairman as Mr Qureshi watched him smilingly.

“We know this member from Multan far better than you,” said the PPP chairman while pointing towards the treasury members belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), asking them to “wait and see, what he does with your prime minister”.

“Khan Sahib [Prime Minister Imran Khan] will soon come to know what kind of a person he (FM) is,” the PPP chairman said. He told members of the ruling party that Mr Qureshi, who had joined the PTI in 2012 after quitting the PPP, would soon ditch them, too.

While Speaker Qaiser asked the PPP chairman not to make personal attacks, the latter refused and even asked him to tell Mr Khan “to be aware of” the foreign minister, saying that Mr Qureshi was about to become a “threat” to the ruling party as he wanted “to hear his own voice” and not that of the prime minister.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari alleged that the foreign minister was involved in the alleged “Kashmir sell-off”.

Instead of targeting the opposition, the foreign minister should focus on his ministry and arrange a phone call of US President Joe Biden for Prime Minister Imran Khan in the wake of the changing Afghanistan situation, he said. He said the nation was feeling ashamed that in the eyes of the US, their prime minister did not have any importance.

The PPP chairman, who kept using the words “an MNA from Multan” in his speech to refer to Mr Qureshi, said he would not be able to contest the next election as he had failed to fulfill the promise of new South Punjab province.

Referring to the ruckus that had been created by the treasury members to block the opening budget speech of Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif, the PPP chairman said Mr Sharif was attacked by the “monkeys” in the assembly and similar kind of “cartoons” tried to do the same thing in Sindh Assembly during the budget session. The word “monkeys” was expunged by Speaker Qaiser from the assembly’s proceedings tough he let go the word “cartoons” used for PTI members in Sindh Assembly.

Taking the floor again, FM Qureshi said if the PPP chairperson knew him well, he too had known Bilawal since he was a baby. “I knew him since he used to stand in the corner and get scolded. I know him as well as his baba [father],” said Mr Qureshi, adding that he was sitting in the parliament after defeating the PPP candidates in the 2013 and 2018 elections with a heavy margin.

He said the PPP leadership used to provide chits to the “child” (Bilawal) who then started reading them with “switched on and off” on auto.

About ex-PM Gilani, Mr Qureshi said he was enjoying the position of opposition leader in the Senate with “government votes” after a “muk muka” (covert deal).

While taking the floor earlier, Mr Bhutto-Zardari had alleged that the government had “rigged” the Tuesday vote on the federal budget.

Besides Mr Zardari, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Khawaja Asif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Asad Mehmood of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl) also criticised the speaker over his alleged partial conduct in the assembly.

The PPP chairman said under the rules, the speaker was obligated to carry out a count when he had challenged the voice vote during the final vote on the finance bill, but the speaker did not pay any heed and left the chair after adjourning the sitting. The speaker, however, claimed that he had already adjourned the proceedings when Mr Bhutto-Zardari challenged his ruling on the voice vote.

The speaker then gave floor to Mr Qureshi to respond to the opposition members’ speeches. In his speech, the foreign minister mostly lashed out at the PPP chairman saying “you can have reservations about the speaker’s decisions, but you should take it up in his chamber. You don’t confront them on the floor of the house.”

The foreign minister said under the Charter of Democracy signed between the PPP and the PML-N in May 2006, the two parties had agreed to give the chairmanship of the public accounts committees to the opposition, but he regretted it didn’t happen in Sindh.

Mr Qureshi also criticised the opposition leader for not being present during the debate on the finance bill as 25 PML-N members were missing.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly approved 174 supplementary grants worth over Rs1.25 trillion for past three fiscal years after the opposition members criticised the “financial management” of the government.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2021