Treasury members stage unprecedent walkout from Punjab Assembly in protest

The members of the ruling Nawaz League walked out of the Punjab Assembly's Thursday session protesting against the opposition party members chanting against their leadership and carrying Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan's posters in the House.

According to the 24News HD TV channel, the Punjab Assembly session started one hour and 34 minutes behind its scheduled time under the chair of Deputy Speaker Malik Zahir Iqbal Channar on Thursday.

Opposition Leader Malik Ahmad Khan Bhachar was offered by the chair for a traditional opening speech on the scheduled budget debate.

Meanwhile, some opposition members of the PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) started chanting against the ruling party's leadership and displayed Imran Khan's photos in the House.
Reacting over it, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) legislator Tehseen Fawad strongly protested and asked the chair to take action against the opposition members.

The PML-N lawmaker Malik Waheed also stood on his desk and tried to tit-for-tat reply in high tone to the opposition but the opponent benches started thumping the desks which failed the deputy speaker to run the business of the house.

On this, Malik Waheed asked the custodian of the house to advise the opposition to calm down and remove Imran Khan's photo.

When the treasury members' requests were unheard and the opposition continued its chanting and displaying Imran Khan's photo in the House, some of the treasury members walked out of the session in protest.

Punjab Finance Minister Mian Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman who was present in the house asked the treasury members to avoid such kind of unprecedented walkout.

Later, Deputy Speaker Zaheer Chanar gave Provincial Minister Bilal Yasin the task of persuading the angry treasury members to bring them back to the House.

Reporter: Hasan Ali