LAHORE - The treasury had a field day in the Punjab Assembly yesterday as the opposition staged boycott of the proceedings against what it said, biased conduct of the speaker and the incident of firing on the PPP leader and former MPA Shaukat Basra in Haroonabad wherein Basra’s secretary lost his life.

With Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan in chair, the house unanimously carried a resolution to express solidarity with the people of Held Kashmir and support their movement for the right to self-determination and demanding the international community to stop killing of innocent and unarmed Kashmiris at the hands of Indian troops.

The absence of the opposition denuded the session of its traditional spark, yet house witnessed a very joyous moment when the ruling party member Dr Farzana Nazir demanded the chief minister to raise salary of the Punjab MPAs at par with the members of KP Assembly who now enjoy minimum salary of Rs 1.5lakh per month through the recent decision. Law Minister taunted the PTI-led KP government holding increase in the members salary in contrast with Imran Khan tirade on the government while protesting on container in 2014. The minister, however, promised to take up the issue with the chief minister provided raise in the KP members would be confirmed by official notification. The speaker directed the assembly secretary to produce copy of the notification from KP.

The treasury MPAs appeared overexcited over the demand and in that fit of emotion they stood up pressing their demand and turning a deaf ear to what the chair was saying at the moment.

The opposition which boycotted the session missed the opportunity to join the voice with the treasury as increase in salaries had to benefit them all. The chair twice sent two senior members to bring the opposition back to house but the latter refused to turn up unless their demands and reservations on the speaker’s attitude are addressed. Earlier before leaving the house in protest, Leader of the Opposition Mian Mahmudur Rashid accused the chair of exhibiting partiality in favour of the government. He also condemned firing on Basra. The opposition had boycotted the session on Thursday too on the same issue.

Law minister presented the house a bill to amend the Punjab Local Government Act 2013 to the effect of removing bar on the double membership in case of a mayor, deputy mayor, chairman and vice chairman, to omit the provision regarding dissolution of the LGs and to empower the deputy mayor or vice chairman to preside over the meeting. The chairman referred the bill to the standing committee concerned for report in two months.

Suspending rules, the house passed a resolution in support of Kashmiris’ struggle against the Indian occupation and said, people of Pakistan stand shoulder to shoulder with Kashmiris and would continue to support their cause and extend moral, diplomatic and political support until they get their admitted right to self-determination. The house also urged the world to play a role towards implementation of resolution on Kashmir which the UN had also passed and force the Indian government stop killing of Kashmiri people, their brutality and violation of civil rights.

Earlier, Minister Malik Nadeem Kamran responding to the questions relating to Department of Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering, admitted that project relating to provision of drinking water under the Saaf Pani project had hit delay due to change of contract and increase of Rs70billion after the project was opened to international bidding wherein its cost soared from original Rs121 billion to Rs191billion. Without clearly mentioning about any corruption in the project, the minister said probe was going on as to the cause of delay.

Further proceedings with the 26th session were adjourned till 10am Tuesday (today).