ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Monday witnessed another verbal clash between members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from Sindh and their former colleague and present Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Dr Fehmida Mirza, with both sides hitting out at each other with allegations — some of them of personal nature.
Unlike Thursday, when the house witnessed a similar situation forcing Speaker Asad Qaiser to abruptly adjourn the proceedings, Monday’s session did not spill out of control after senior leaders from the treasury and the opposition intervened.
It all started when PPP MNA from Mirpurkhas Mir Munawer Ali Talpur took the floor on a point of order to condemn the arrest of Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani by the officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and during his speech he also targeted Dr Fehmida Mirza and her spouse Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, once a close confidant of PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.
Mr Talpur also refuted the allegations of Dr Fehmida Mirza, which she had made during a media talk outside the Parliament House after adjournment of the sitting on Thursday, that she and her family were facing harassment at the behest of the Sindh government at her hometown Badin.
Fehmida Mirza rejects claims she got Rs280m bank loan written off
Mr Talpur alleged that the nomination papers of Dr Mirza, who had contested the last year’s general elections on a ticket of the anti-PPP Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), had been rejected by the election commission for getting loans written off, but her candidature was restored within two days.
Mr Talpur alleged that the NAB officials carrying cash counting machines kept the female members of Mr Durrani’s family hostage for seven hours and conducted a search operation of the house.
“Is this democracy?” he asked.
As soon as Mr Talpur took his seat, the speaker gave the floor to Dr Mirza to speak on a “point of personal explanation” and to respond to the PPP member’s allegations, the protesting opposition members gathered in front of the speaker’s dais.
However, despite noisy protest by the PPP members, Mr Qaiser provided full opportunity to Dr Mirza, who had served as the speaker of the house during the previous PPP government, to continue her speech in an aggressive manner.
“Don’t force me to open my mouth. I know the reality of these people,” she said while looking at the PPP members. She said that she belonged to a respectable and known family of Sindh, “but how can these people know about family values”.
Accusing the PPP-led Sindh government of victimising her and her family after their decision to quit the party, she recalled that all the media channels showed the footage of the attack by the masked men on the building of the Sindh High Court in Karachi where they beat up the guards of Dr Zulfiqar Mirza and journalists in 2015.
“How in this 21st century, masked men appeared on the roads of Karachi? Who were these people? What action had the Sindh government taken?” she went on saying, amidst noisy protest by the PPP members.
The opposition’s protest intensified when she directly alleged that Faryal Talpur, a party MPA from Sindh and sister of Asif Zardari, was behind the attacks on her house in Badin.
“Faryal Talpur, who poses as the chief minister of Sindh, was issuing instructions from her house,” she alleged, saying that she did not want to name anyone, but the PPP members had forced her to do so.
“You started all this. Now have courage and listen,” she said when the PPP members asked the speaker to switch her mike off. Dr Fehmida Mirza threatened that if the opposition members did not allow her to complete her speech she would not let anyone from the opposition benches speak.
The angry minister also refuted the claims that she had got a bank loan of Rs280 million written off. She asked the PPP members to tell as to who had looted the Sindh Bank and Summit Bank. She claimed that she had all the documents and proof to prove her claim which she would soon present before the house. Claiming that she had never obtained any loan, she said that she would also present the report of the State Bank of Pakistan in this regard.
Later, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and PPP’s Naveed Qamar advised the members to desist from using unparliamentary language and dragging families in the debate.
Asad Mehmood of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) criticised the government for not inviting the opposition at the official engagements of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
He also sought an explanation from the government over the recent statement of former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf in which he had called for establishing relationship with Israel. He alleged that all the neighbouring countries, including China and Iran, were unhappy with Pakistan.
Asad Mehmood, who is the son of JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, threatened that they would soon launch an anti-government movement from the famous D-Chowk in Islamabad, saying that “they cannot give more time to the government”.
Mr Qureshi said that he was ready for a parliamentary debate on the country’s foreign policy. He said that there had been no change in the decades-old policy on the issue of recognition to Israel.
Earlier, Khawaja Asif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz asked the speaker to issue the production order of his party colleague Khawaja Saad Rafique.
