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LAHORE: Punjab Assembly’s budget session for 2022-23 to resume today in which Finance Minister Awais Leghari will present the budget. The house was adjourned till Tuesday (today) after the session was marred by verbal exchanges between Speaker Pervaiz Elahi and ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmakers, yesterday.
The session, which was originally scheduled to begin at 2pm, did not start until 8:09pm. As soon as the session began, PTI members complained that chief minister, chief secretary and other secretaries were not present in the house, urging the speaker not to allow the government members from presenting the budget.
On this, PML-N’s Malik Mohammad Ahmed said CM Hamza Shehbaz and chief secretary would come to the floor if the opposition gives timeframe for the start of session.
He said that the chief minister is in his chamber but not in the house since the session was due to begin at 2pm and did not start for several hours.
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PTI MPA Chaudhry Zaheeruddin said that there were “strangers” in the house, pointing at PML-N’s Attaullah Tarar who is not an elected member but was sitting with the rest of MPAs.
This ignited a fierce debate in the house. “You (Tarar) should go from here. If you do not go then there will be no presenting of budget and no budget speech,” Speaker Elahi said.
He later called in sergeant-at-arms and asked them to escort Tarar out. However, the PML-N members resisted and did not allow the sergeant-at-arms to abide the speaker’s orders.
Later, Elahi suspended the session for 10 minutes and ordered the removal of Tarar from the house, threatening to suspend the session indefinitely if his orders were not obeyed.