In a bid to enforce order in the National Assembly amid a ruckus, Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri directed Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Agha Rafiullah to leave the house for “disrupting the session”.

The house witnessed pandemonium after the opposition leaders started protesting the deputy speaker’s refusal to allow the opposition lawmakers to make speeches on point of order.

Geo News reported PPP leader Agha Rafiullah Awan initiated cross-talk when the treasury benches started discussing the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) rallies.

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At this, he was told by Suri not to disrupt the house. However, instead of backing down, Rafiullah approached the desk of the deputy speaker and demanded his right to speak. Suri, who was chairing the session in the absence of Speaker Asad Qaiser, got irked by the attitude of Rafiullah and told him to leave the house.

In a video, Agha Rafiullah can be seen arguing with the deputy speaker, while Suri can be heard asking the sergeant to escort the lawmaker out of the National Assembly.

After the lawmaker was told to leave the premises, PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf issued an apology on Rafiullah’s behalf and asked the deputy speaker to review his decision.

However, Suri refused to agree and told the PPP leader to advise his colleague to leave the house. “If Rafiullah leaves the house for a while and then apologise upon his return, he can be allowed to sit here,” a visibly irked Suri told Ashraf.

However, the PPP leader had not left the house on the deputy speaker’s directives, prompting Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Mohammad Khan to read out a clause of the rules and regulation that stated a member could be suspended over non-compliance with the speaker’s directives.

The minister said it was imperative upon the lawmaker to comply with the ruling of the speaker for the sake of the sanctity of parliament.

Finally, the PPP lawmaker, joined by his colleagues, agreed to leave the house for a few minutes.