ISLAMABAD – Members of opposition on Thursday staged a walkout from the National Assembly, the first since the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has formed the government, over what they called the use of non-parliamentary language by Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry.
Expressing anger, they slammed Chaudhry for calling the members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) robbers.
The row stemmed when PPP’s Dr Nafeesa Shah submitted a privilege motion in the lower house of the parliament against the information minister for levelling serious allegation against Khursheed Shah accusing him of appointing 800 blue-eyed persons at the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation in three hours.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/pakistan/ppp-destroyed-state-institutions-by-inducting-cronies-says-info-min-fawad-ch/
She also read out the tweet shared by the information minister stating, “PPP destroyed all institutions including PBC [Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation] by filling its own cronies, in three days Khursheed Shah filled 800 people only in Radio! costing 7 crore Rs additional burden, Govt is drowning 5 B Rs every year only on Radio thanks to PPP visionless policy”.
https://twitter.com/fawadchaudhry/status/1045162268445626369
Chaudhry, in response, addressed the session and reiterated his claims stating, “What should else I call the robbers and thieves”.
NA Speaker Asad Qaiser, then, directed the information minister to use the parliamentary language.
Khursheed Shah urged NA Speaker Asad Qaiser to send the matter to the privileges committee and the minister should be asked to prove the accusations.
He also said that the members of the opposition will not come to the National Assembly until the minister tender an apology.
Later, some government ministers, including Petroleum Minister Ghulam Sarvar, went behind the protesting legislators to soothe them.
The protesting opposition members agreed to join the session again after Chaudhry apologised over his remarks on the demand of the opposition.
