'Do abusive MNAs deserve supremacy?'

By: Afzal Bajwa | October 14, 2009 |
ISLAMABAD - It is a petty indeed. Pakistans Lower House while in session witnessed a Treasury member abusing the other sitting on the opposition benches. Had the chair not adjourned the House in a timely way, it would have ordered to expunge the entire last episode on Tuesday from the proceedings of the National Assembly.
No matter what was expunged and what was not, the Treasury MNA Jamshaid Dasti kept on giving naked abuses to Parliamentary leader of the PML-Q Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat, who also cautiously returned some of them but surely after the session was adjourned.
It is highly painful to see Parliamentarians slipping below the much-trumpeted parliamentary norms and etiquettes. But even more ironic was to observe the MPs getting that emotional and outrageous against each other on personal issues leaving the burning national issues behind their dirty exchanges.
In the realm of rationalism, authority is always delegated only to discharge responsibility. One who is not responsible deserves absolutely no authority delegated to him, at all.
Hayats party decided to boycott until the membership of the MNA in question is suspended, while the government just cared to say, abusive language should not be supported.
Without taking any action against the member who used the abusive language while the House was in session, Parliamentary Minister Babar Awan rather urged the PML-Q to join back the House proceedings preferring the personal issues to the more important national issues.
It was however an eyewitness account that Awan who hesitated even in condemning the usage of abusive language in media, was the one who in the first place enticed the Treasury members harsh hooting against Hayat. Indifference on part of the government to the untoward and unfortunate occurrence in the Parliament was evident when Mr Dasti was seen heading the National Assembly Standing Committee as a normal routine in the afternoon.
Watching shameful scene inside the National Assembly hall wherein Interior Minister Rehman Malik pulled Mr Dasti towards the backbenches quite forcefully in order to avoid a physical scuffle then and there, a colleague commented, alas, one hopes they become that serious on national issues, as well.
His comment was followed by an improvised but a million dollar question Do these parliamentarians really deserve supremacy?

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