ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was mired in controversy for a second time in as many days as parliamentarians confronted each other with shoving matches and slogans.
Federal Minister for Power Omar Ayub was speaking on Thursday during a session of the parliament when his speech angered members of the Opposition.
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Ayub reportedly challenged any Opposition member to stand against him in an election, saying that he had gotten elected by beating a PML-N rival candidate by a margin of 40,000 votes.
This did not sit well with the Opposition, who stood up and tore copies of the agenda, shouting slogans of “Go Imran Go” and “Ata mehnga, roti mehngi” while surrounding the speaker’s dais.
A shoving match started between members of the government and treasury benches due to which a few parliamentarians fell on the floor. PPP’s Syed Naveed Qamar took the mic down from the deputy speaker’s dais in protest.
The deputy speaker postponed the session after Opposition and government members started got into scuffles.
Federal Minister for Information and Technology Fawad Chaudhry could be seen in a video from the session, filming the ruckus from his mobile phone as another federal minister, Zartaj Gul Wazir looked on, smiling.
A day earlier, the NA had turned noisy as well when the government presented a bill to hold open balloting in the upcoming Senate elections.
The members of parliament belonging to the Opposition benches had chanted slogans, blew whistles, banged the desks and had stood up from their seats in protest against the move and in a bid to prevent Minister for Law Farogh Naseem from reading out the contents of the bill.
Members of both the treasury and Opposition benches chanted “go” against one another.
In response to the ruckus caused by Opposition members, government lawmakers had also gotten up and protested loudly. Shah Mahmood Qureshi had said: “It cannot be so that you say whatever you wish but do not listen to others.”
