ISLAMABAD - The fist-fight by the Parliamentarians in the National Assembly during the budget speech of Federal Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has reminded the people sitting in the visitors galleries the rowdiness and ugly scenes in the same house in mid-70s when the then ruling party led by PPP founding Chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had managed to physically throw the then opposition members including Moulana Mufti Mahmood out of the house by sergeant-at-arms.

Perhaps, after that sorry and ugly episode the country’s apex legislative body had not witnessed what it has witnessed on Friday when the Opposition and Treasury members were at dragger’s drawn and setting aside all Parliamentary norms were freely trading foul language and throwing paper pieces and plastic hand-fans on the members sitting on the treasury benches.
The things went out of control when the Opposition members started raising indecent slogans against Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and tried to push back the human shield prepared by the treasury members in front of the Prime Minster and the Finance Minister who was delivering budget speech. This infuriated some of the members belonging to PPP and one of them pounced on the opposition members and then it become free for all as the house witnessed the ugliest of unruly scenes never seen in the Parliament in the recent past.
Most of the members from the protesting PML-N were not reconciling with the fashion of protest their colleagues had adopted and were staying a bit farther from the main protesting crowed.
One of them later sharing his sentiments with The Nation said that he simply thought he was protesting at some downtown venue in Rawalpindi.  Even Leader of Opposition Ch. Nisar Ali Khan was seemed perturbed over the way things were heading during the brawl and later he admonished some of his own party members who were trespassing the limits of decency.
Some of the members who remained neutral in the whole episode viewed the ugly scenes in the house as unfortunate and an attempt to undermine the sanctity of the Parliament.
They said that the politics of indecency and offensiveness of 90s had not revived rather it had pushed back to the politics of 70s when the ruling party used to physically throw opposition members out of the house.
One of the senior Parliamentarians jokingly said, “Thank God our Parliamentarians have not got the air of the Parliamentarians of Japan or France.”