By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The leader of the parliamentary opposition issued a sharp ultimatum to the government on Friday, threatening a complete boycott of the upcoming federal budget session unless the authorities meet longstanding demands for the medical care and visitation rights of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who heads the opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahafuz Ayeen-i-Pakistan and serves as president of the Pakhtoonkhwa Mili Awami Party, delivered the warning during what he described as lacklustre proceedings on the final day of the lower house session.
Speaking on a point of order, Achakzai questioned the value of a budget debate without opposition participation. “What will the budget session even look like without the opposition?” he asked. “You can just pass it in two days without any debate. What will the international community think?”
The government has said it intends to convene the National Assembly in the first half of June to present the federal budget. Achakzai warned that failure to address the opposition’s concerns would trigger regret and a broader political backlash. “You will repent,” he said, predicting that the country would soon be swept up in a “massive opposition movement.”
At the center of the dispute are the opposition’s demands that Khan, the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and a former prime minister, receive medical treatment in a hospital of his choice and be granted unrestricted visitation rights. Khan remains incarcerated.
Achakzai pointed to the empty treasury benches as evidence of the government’s lack of seriousness about parliamentary business. “If the PTI members leave this house, there will be no quorum,” he said. Under National Assembly rules, the presence of at least one-fourth of the 332-member house — 86 lawmakers — is required to maintain a quorum and continue proceedings.
Turning to the Speaker, Achakzai urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his colleagues to treat Parliament as a genuine “source of power” rather than allow it to be undermined. “Through you Mr. Speaker, I request [Prime Minister] Shehbaz Sharif; through you, I request my colleagues, make this parliament a source of power. Do not spoil it,” he said. “Parliament is our lifeline,” Achakzai added. “We are ready to provide you with unconditional help for it.”
He also complained that the press was facing curbs and accused the government of attempting to deface the Constitution, something he said the opposition would never permit. Addressing Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, who was present in the chamber, Achakzai extended an invitation: “Come and seek our help. Come to parliament and democracy.”
The session itself was repeatedly disrupted by quorum issues. At the outset, Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq was forced to suspend proceedings for more than half an hour after PTI lawmaker Iqbal Afridi raised the point. When the house reconvened, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan took the floor to protest what he called the government’s efforts to silence dissent.
Gohar Ali Khan sharply criticised the authorities for what he described as the insulting treatment of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and Imran Khan’s sisters by police as they tried to visit the former prime minister at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi. “Our people are being picked up from their houses and we protest over continued excesses committed with the party,” he said. After the question hour, Deputy Speaker Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah allowed several members to speak on points of order before reading out the president’s order proroguing the session.
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