The National Assembly, the sacred house that protects the Constitution of Pakistan and acts as the legislature for the country and the nation, has been engulfed in a storm of insults since the budget was presented, an example of which has never been seen before. When the Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif came to deliver his speech, chaos and noise in the House reached its peak.It took the opposition leader three days to complete his budget speech. During this time, members of the National Assembly shouted at each other, violated democratic traditions, hurled insults, Parliament, which is a sacred house, became a bazaar where bazaari language was used. This is the most embarrassing and disturbing incident in the history of Pakistan. There was action.
The spectacle that lasted for four days in the National Assembly was witnessed not only by Pakistanis but by the whole world. The situation in Balochistan was worse than what happened in the National Assembly when the budget was to be presented there. Shoes were thrown at Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan. The opposition locked the gate of the assembly. The commotion in the Balochistan assembly after the National Assembly is not a good omen for the parliament and parliamentary politics.
PTI MPs use accent and dialect, use non-parliamentary language, make baseless allegations. Despite being in government, his style of politics is still in opposition. one of the worst examples of intolerance and prejudice came when Firdous Ashiq Awan, the Punjab Chief Minister’s Special Assistant for Information, slapped Qadir Mandokhel (a PPP National Assembly member) on a private TV channel. I was also rewarded with a nasty sentence. During the month of Ramadan, Firdous Awan regularly scolded the female assistant commissioner of Sialkot, Sonia Sadaf, saying that her actions were not the same as those of the assistant commissioner. Said much more, in the National Assembly session this year, Pervez Ashraf complained to the Speaker that the female minister (Shreen Mazari) could not put on her lips what I had pointed out to our member.
The accent and language used by Murad Saeed, Ali Amin Gandapur, Ali Nawaz Awan and other members of the National Assembly cannot be called parliamentary language in any way. The tone used by Imran Khan in ‘Container Politics’, fostered uncivilized and non-political traditions.Today the same thinking has become part of the attitude shownby his Member of Parliament. It has gone beyond political differences to hatred, ego and intolerance.During the speech of Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif, the manner in which the members of the government and the opposition clashed with each other, pushed each other and shouted in public, the government and the opposition together violated the sanctity and sanctity of the parliament. Yes, many federal ministers continued to enjoy the commotion.Instead of expressing regret and embarrassment over what happened in Parliament, Federal Minister Fawad Chaudhry has taken a stand that they will not open up or play. “If you do not listen to us, we will not let you speak either.”
The importance that the PTI and Prime Minister Imran Khan attach to Parliament can be gauged from the fact that they have shown their face in the House only 16 times in the three years of the present Parliament. Imran Khan appeared 12 times in the first parliamentary year, while in second year only once and in the third year Imran Khan appeared only 3 times.Speeches, accusations, accusations, production orders, walkouts and protests, repeated quorum break-ups, all these scenes made Parliament a fish market for three years.Members of the Assembly and Ministers in the House do not care about the poor, helpless, vulnerable, oppressed people, nor do they care about the underprivileged who are drowning in inflation. Rising prices of flour, sugar, vegetables, pulses and petrol have made it difficult for the poor to make ends meet.
On the other hand, the elites in the National and Provincial Assemblies are at odds with each other over why you made a fuss over our leader’s speech. So now we will not let you speak either.After the uproar and non-parliamentary language in the National Assembly, the people are forced to say that we do not want a democracy where the members of the National and Provincial Assemblies who indulge in our tax money only have time to please their leader’s ego and wasting money.
On the one hand, the moral degradation of the MPs is that they are openly abusing each other. Sometimes in the bazaar, sometimes in the TV talk show and sometimes in the parliament. Instead of being ashamed of their actions and apologizing to the nation, they are blaming each other. The commotion in Parliament was not to solve public problems.Not to end poverty, not to end unemployment, but to humiliate each other, to satisfy one’s ego, to extinguish the fire of jealousy. Neither the respect of Parliament nor Pakistan They do not even realize the sanctity of Pakistan.
The salaries and benefits of the rich parliamentarians of poor Pakistan are astonishing to see how the leaders of a poor country are squandering the nation’s money.According to a report, the annual salary of members of the Punjab Provincial Assembly is 11 billion 130 million rupees. The annual salary of the members of the Sindh Assembly is 3.5 billion rupees, the annual salary of the members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly is 2 billion 60 million rupees, the annual salary of 65 members of Balochistan is 10 million rupees. While the annual salary of members of the Assembly is Rs. 12.30 billion and the annual salary of 104 senators is more than Rs. 50 crores.
You will also be surprised to know that these members receive twice as many benefits as the salaries of the Assemblies. If salaries are around Rs 35-40 billion, then the expenditure on house rent, car, house and ticket, travel abroad and accommodation, etc., reaches around Rs 85 billion annually. However, 90% of them are MPs who possess their own mills, factories, and overseas businesses.
Comparing the parliamentarians of Pakistan with the parliamentarians of other countries would be eye-opening. India is the world’s sixth largest economy. It’s member of the Lok Sabha used to get a salary of Rs 15,000 till 2007.Members of the Lok Sabha struggled for a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000. When members of the Lok Sabha raised the question of increasing their salaries, they got an answer. In a country where 40 million people sleep on the sidewalk. Fifty percent of the country’s people live below the poverty line. A country whose artisan earns an average of Rs. 200 per day. How can the salaries of public representatives be increased there all at once?
The salaries of these Lok Sabha members do not exceed Rs 50,000 in the 2018 budget, which includes their house allowance, medical allowance and phone bill. There are still a large number of members in the Lok Sabha who arrive in rickshaws to attend the meeting. However, there is no politician in Pakistan who does not have a private house, car or bank balance. Spending Rs 50.50 crore is a trivial matter.The Pakistani parliament is the gold mine in which you can become a member of millions and then earn billions. Another example is the Turkish parliament, where more than 70% of the members deposit their salaries back in the state funds and make a foreigntrip these members stay in their embassies or in the homes of ambassadors as guests.
On the contrary, the Pakistani members of the Assembly have their own privileges. On the one hand, there are 50 committees in the National Assembly and the Senate, and each committee has a chairman. Each chairman also has a private secretary of grade seventeen, an assistant of grade fifteen, a deputy courier, a new car of 1300 cc, free phone facility at the residence. In addition to this, the salaries of their personal employees and the daily expenses of the offices are in addition.They are given TADA for three days before and three days after the commencement of the meeting. According to an estimate, these 50 committees had spent Rs 4.5 billion during the PML-N regime.
An amendment bill has been introduced by the government in the upper house of Pakistan’s Senate in June 2020, stating that travel vouchers will be issued in exchange for 25 return air tickets per annum to MPs, including members’ families. (An estimated travel voucher is worth Rs. 300,000 per annum.)Not only this, unused tickets and vouchers for the year 2019/20 will be accepted till June 30, 2020. The purpose of the bill. The objectives state that under the rules, MPs are entitled to 25 business class open return tickets each year for travel to Islamabad.The privileges of billionaires and crorepatis who represent the nation’s pain and represent the poor do not stop here.In addition to the MP’s salary and benefits, he also gets a daily allowance of Rs 2,800 and a house allowance of Rs 2,000 for the National Assembly and Senate sessions.
Public representatives are also not happy with these benefits and salaries. They are demanding more in return for public service. Their aspirations can be gauged from this bill.In February 2020, a bill was introduced in the Senate to increase the salaries of MPs. According to the proposed bill, the salary of the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairman of the Senate will be increased from Rs 225,000 to Rs 879,000. It was proposed to increase the salary of Deputy Chairman Senate and Deputy Speaker National Assembly from Rs. 185,000 to Rs. 829,000 as the basic salary of a judge of Islamabad High Court.The senators had proposed to increase the salaries of MPs from Rs 150,000 to Rs 300,000 by amending the MPs’ Salaries and Privileges Act, but the bill could not be passed.
The beloved homeland is occupied by 2% of the elite. This class occupies 98% of the houses. The people are forced to think that this outdated system will continue or something will change. Imran Khan who came with the slogan of change has become a part of a rotten system. ?The people are still hopeful for change, but who will bring about this change? What happened in Parliament reinforces the statement that these politicians are incapable of running the country.
The monopoly of a few families in the name of democracy should end now. The country needs a real democratic system.Whose leadership is in the hands of educated, moral, civilized, and young leadership. They may change the rotten system in the country.
