ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has abjured parliamentary manners by giving threats to Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser in a special session of the National Assembly on Tuesday.
While speaking on the floor of the lower house, the former prime minister hit out at the government for not taking the Opposition into confidence regarding the resolution on the French envoy.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi lashed at Asad Qaiser and approached his rostrum saying, “You are making the issues controversial. Don’t you have any shame?”
“Yesterday, you postponed the session and called a meeting today. If you had to bring a resolution, you should have spoken to the opposition first”, Abbasi said.
According to sources, when Shahid Khaqan Abbasi used unparliamentary language to target Asad Qaiser, the Speaker also lost his cool and directed the former PM to stay within his limits. As the situation intensified, the PML-N leader threatened: “I will take off my shoe and hit you.”
Abbasi added that for the past three years, parliament had been left in a crippled state and was turned into a den where nothing but abuses are hurled, remarks which were ordered expunged by the speaker.
Later, Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry has condemned the attitude of PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi towards the Speaker.
Talking to the media after the National Assembly session, Fawad Chaudhry said that Shahid Khaqan does not know how to address the Speaker and his attitude is always hypocritical.
He said, “Our agreement has been completed; now the resolution will be discussed because the PML-N did not agree with today’s resolution.”
Earlier, a resolution on the expulsion of the French Ambassador to Pakistan over the issue of the blasphemous caricatures was presented to the National Assembly.
According to the resolution, blasphemous sketches were published by a French magazine, and then the French president’s remarks hurt the sentiments of hundreds of millions of Muslims in the name of freedom of expression.
“The House condemns the publication of insulting sketches by the controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo and Muslims around the world had also expressed outrage at the publication of the sketches,” read the resolution.
The resolutions also asked for a debate over the issue of deporting the French ambassador and also proposed to provide spaces in different parts of the country for protests on religious issues. It added that instead of blocking roads, specific places for protests should be identified.
“All Muslim countries should be consulted on the issue and all European countries in general and France, in particular, should be made aware of the seriousness of the issue,” the resolution added.
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan also moved a motion to form a parliamentary committee on the issue.
The session was adjourned by Speaker Asad Qaiser without any major inroads made and will resume on Friday, April 23, at 11 am. He called upon the government and the Opposition to sit down together in the meanwhile and formulate a unanimous resolution on the expulsion of the French envoy.
