LAHORE: Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly Malik Ahmad Khan Bhachar has announced stepping up protest from humble token hunger strike camp to large scale protests across the province against “unannounced martial law” and government’s excesses against masses.

Mr Bhachar, while speaking at a news conference at Lahore Press Club on Wednesday, also took Speaker Punjab Assembly Malik Ahmad Khan to task for his “unprecedented” press conference and crying for the wastage of some Rs30 million public resources – as opposition members marked attendance and did not attend the session.

Accusing him of becoming partisan despite being custodian of the House, the opposition leader said the speaker had new luxury vehicles and still got approval from the finance committee to purchase new vehicles for the speaker and secretary assembly at a total cost of Rs180 million.

He said the chief minister had her offices at the 7-Club and 8-Club GOR-1 but still got her private Jati Umra residence declared as a camp office so that every bill of the house should be paid from the public money.

Says party to move court against PA speaker’s actions

He also asked the speaker to call for the record of treasury MPAs, who mark attendance and do not attend session, and provincial ministers taking travel and daily allowance (TA/DA) and added the speaker had severally stated in the house that the treasury was not taking the proceedings seriously.

Mr Bhachar said the speaker had gone beyond his powers and suspended Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s 11 members for 15 sittings, which he could not do without giving a prior notice. He said the speaker could suspend the members, initially, for one day.

Stating that the speaker suspended PTI’s 11 members to please the chief minister, Bhachar said he would never be able to stop the opposition from protesting against the chief minister and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif. “The opposition will not bow to any pressure tactic and continue its fight till the release of PTI founder chairman Imran Khan and other party leaders, restoration of reserved seats and return of party MPAs on the basis of Form-45 results.

Lamenting that a man killed his brother on the issue of inflated power bill, the opposition leader said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz would be answerable.

He said the incumbent rulers led the farmers in the province to face a loss of billions of rupees and added that now the flour prices were rising and the government functionaries were minting money.

In a bid to declare the PTI and its leaders and workers as digital terrorists, he said, the Punjab government got its workers arrested, raided party’s secretariat in Islamabad and confiscated “affidavits of party legislators declaring their loyalty to the PTI”.

He asserted that no one would ever be able to ban the PTI or impose Article 6 against its leaders.

Chiding the Punjab Assembly speaker for locking his office and calling back the staff and other privileges, the opposition leader said he had requested the speaker to allot some space within the assembly premises so that he could do his (opposition leader) work but the request fell on deaf ears. “We do not want to go inside the assembly building as it has been reduced to a structure of bricks and mortar that represent neither justice nor democratic norms,” he stated and added that the PTI would go to the courts against the actions taken by the speaker.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2024