The second address to the joint sitting of parliament was not smooth sailing for President Asif Ali Zardari as parliamentarians of the PML-Q staged a walkout, raising slogans against horsetrading in the Punjab.The walkout ended after a few minutes when some federal ministers convinced them to return to the house.
The PML-N had announced that it would listen to the speech of President Zardari silently but members of the PML-Q turned up at the session with a different frame of mind.
Soon after the recitation of verses from the holy Quran, PML-Q parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat stood up to raise a point of order. However, National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza did not allow him to speak, saying that no point of order could be raised according to rules when the president was to address the joint sitting of parliament.
At this, PML-Q President Senator Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Amir Muqam, Riaz Pirzada and all the party members also stood up. Some of them, including Awais Leghari, Riaz Pirzada, Marvi Memon and others, shouted slogans of "No to horsetrading and Lotacracy in the Punjab" while thumping their desks.
Dr Fehmida Mirza, time and again, requested the protesting parliamentarians to take their seats as slogans being raised by them would leave a bad impression on diplomats and other dignitaries who were watching the proceedings from the galleries.
The speaker said the concerns of the PML-Q members were true but it was not the proper way. However, they did not pay heed to the speaker's request.
In the meantime, the speaker invited President Zardari to address parliament. But, he delivered the first part of his speech amid an uproar created by the PML-Q parliamentarians. The PML-Q parliamentarians, however, walked out of the house after the speaker ignored their point of view.
Later, talking to newsmen outside the Parliament House at the end of the session, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said if the Punjab Assembly session was not convened by tomorrow, they would consider the last one month's confrontation between the PPP and the PML-N a sham (Noora Kushti).
PML-Q parliamentary leader Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat said President Zardari did mention the history of 'Changa Manga' in horsetrading but no practical steps were announced to end this bad practice.
He said the politics of the forward bloc had been gaining momentum after the February 18 elections and their party's mandate was hijacked by the PPP and the PML-N, which formed Balochistan and the Punjab governments respectively.
He warned that if members of the PML-Q forward bloc did not return to the party, the leadership would move the court to apply the Defection Clause on these MPAs.
He said the PML-Q had forwarded a three-point formula for the formation of the Punjab government to end the evil of horsetrading, but now the party had decided to play a neutral role in the province.