LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly faced another day of thin attendance on Wednesday as the House lost quorum within 10 minutes of start of the session and the situation continued for over two hours before it met the mandatory requirement of 93 members.

When it finally met at 2pm, the `opposition-less` House ran through three bills in next 22 minutes before moving on for the `much-awaited` lunch. The bills included the Education Initiatives ManagementAuthority, Motor Vehicle (amendment) and Zakat and Ushr.

The House started its proceedings at 11.35am, instead of announced 10am, and ran directly into the quorum crisis. As soon as it took up Question Hour, Asif Mahmood of the Pal(istan Tehreelei-Insaaf pointed out quorum. Only 32 members were present in a house of 371. The chair ordered ringing of bells for five minutes and no one showed up.

Then ringing of bells was ordered for 10 minutes and they continued for next 135 minutes because the House had very thin attendance.

By round 1.15pm Rana Sanaullah, the minister for law and parliamentary affairs, showed up and the number started swelling, albeit slowly.

By 2pm, which precisely was the official lunch time, the House was able to gather around 100 of its members and start the pro-ceedings. As the chair announced start of Question Hour, which was supposed to answer queries regarding primary and secondary healthcare, Rana Sanaullah stood up to tell the House that neither the minister, parliamentary secretary nor the administrative secretary were available as they had gone to Multan with the chief minister on a `very important` visit, the Question Hour thus should be deferred for another day.

This irked Asif Mahmood of the Opposition. `It has been the third time in the current session when the Question Hour is being shifted to another day. Does the assembly secretariat not inform the minister, the parliamentary secretary about the day and their duties? If it does, why are they so callous? A new tradition is being set in the House adjusting the assembly proceedings to the convenience of a few. Thiscannot be allowed and the Opposition would boycott the rest of the proceedings in protest,` he said.

And they walked out of the House amid Chair`s requests to return.

The Opposition`s walkout only helped the Treasury. It had three bills on the agenda for the day and the Opposition had moved amendments to some of clauses. The Chair, however, kept calling the name of the movers of the amendment and requesting them to return to the House but to no avail. With the Opposition out, it had a field day. Almost 30 per cent of its members immediately left the House to have the lunch, as someone quipped in the press gallery as the risk of quorum pointing out subsided. The thinly attended House then took up the bills, read and approved them all in the next 20 minutes and adjourned the proceedings till Thursday morning.