ISLAMABAD: Pakistan National Assembly (NA) on Thursday witnessed chaos and mayhem when members from the government and Opposition benches confronted each other with shoving matches and slogans, reported Geo News.
The confrontation started when the federal minister for power Omar Ayub challenged opposition members 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 created a ruckus, the Opposition 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, reported Geo News.
A shoving match started between members of the government and treasury benches due to which a few members fell on the floor.
The deputy Speaker postponed the session after opposition and government members started entering into scuffles.
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 National Assembly 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, reported Geo News.
Members of both the Treasury and Opposition benches chanted “go” against one another.
Earlier, former Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf delivered a fiery speech during the National Assembly speech, saying that it was committing fraud by introducing the bill for the open ballot in the Upper House.
“The government members of the National Assembly do not want to vote for the amendment as they themselves have received money [bribes] against it,” he said.
He said that the government was introducing the amendment to sully the opposition’s image, adding that a committee should be formed on the bill which should take suggestions from all members.
An anti-government movement, Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) was started last year against Imran Khan over the issue of corruption.
The opposition had given an ultimatum to Khan to resign by January 31. The deadline given by the opposition has expired and Khan has not yielded.