PML-N leaders, PTI workers’ scuffle outside Parliament

ISLAMABAD   –   A high drama was witnessed on Saturday outside the Parliament House before the start of a special session of the National Assembly convened for a vote of confidence for Prime Minister Imran Khan as PTI workers and the opposition PML-N leadership grappled with each other.

A large number of PTI workers and a few PML-N supporters also raised slogans against each other while coming to blows amid extra security measures taken by the capital police in front of the Parliament House. The PML-N leadership also alleged that they had been manhandled by the PTI workers as the videos of the brawl between both sides vent viral on social media. 

The charged workers of ruling PTI had started gathering on Saturday morning outside the Parliament House and at Islamabad’s famous D-Chowk to show solidarity with the party founder Prime Minister Imran Khan who was going to obtain a vote of confidence in an important session.

This all started when the PML-N leaders including former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Khurram Dastagir, Rana Sanaullah Khan and Senator Musadik Masood Malik were speaking to the media ahead of the session outside the Parliament Lodges. At the same time, some of the PTI supporters gathered at the green belt near Parliament Lodges and allegedly shouted at the PML-N leaders and raised slogans in favour of PM that led to the brawl.

All the opposition parties part of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) had boycotted the session.

Soon after the media talk, some of the PTI supporters started raising slogans against the PML-N leadership and assaulted Senator Malik, and Ms Aurengzeb. In response, Malik and Abbasi could be seen in a video angrily charging at PTI supporters and pushing them away.

Another clip showed that Ahsan Iqbal is being hit by a shoe from a far while PML-N supporters around him raised slogans in favour of party supremo Nawaz Sharif. Another unknown person also hurled shoe at the PML-N leader and former deputy Speaker National Assembly Murtaza Javed Abbasi.

The opposition leaders in the press talk criticized the PM, saying that he had lost the confidence of the people. Former PM Abbasi said that the PM did not move for a trust vote according to the Constitution. This is the domain of the President to ask PM to seek vote of confidence from NA if he believed the premier has lost confidence of the legislature, he added.

After the presser, the PML-N leaders alleged they were harassed and manhandled by the PTI supporters and said that the police failed to provide them security. PML-N leader Abbasi said such behaviour was reflective of the PTI’s tactics.

PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah in a video message said that PTI supporters harassed and assaulted their party leaders who were unarmed and questioned that how these workers had gathered in front of the Parliament House that is located in the sensitive security zone of the capital.

On the other hand, Dr Arslan Khalid, the focal person to PM on social media, shared a video through his Twitter handle and alleged that former PM Abbasi and Senator Musadik Malik attacked the PTI workers first while the workers only defended themselves. “Frustration is making them attack workers on street,” he said

Soon after the incident, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz lauded her party’s leaders for “fighting back like lions against vote thieves.”

Scores of PTI workers from different parts of country including its local leadership from Rawalpindi and Islamabad while holding party flags and placards in their hands had gathered in the area around the Parliament House to show their support for PM. “We have come here to show that we stand by PM,” Mirza Shahzeb, a PTI worker belonging to Rawalpindi, told The Nation. He said that the decision of getting a vote of confidence had become important otherwise PDM would use the recent development of defeat of PTI candidate from Islamabad in its favour. 

Soon after the news broke that PM Imran Khan has successfully obtained a vote of confidence, the party workers started raising slogans in favour of their leader and jubilated over his success.

“We were ready for a street movement along with the party leader Imran Khan if he had been failed to obtain a vote of confidence,” Mohammad Amjad, a PTI supporter who had come from far off Parachinar area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told The Nation.