PESHAWAR: The abrupt action of the speaker of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly to adjourn budget session for two days has raised many eyebrows. The House was wrapped up within six minutes on Saturday, despite the fact none of the members pointed out lack of quorum.

Disorder, adjournment of the sittings and lack of quorums often happen in parliamentary businesses and speaker has to adjourn the sitting for few minutes and then resumes the business. But it never happened that a budget session has been immediately adjourned because of lack of quorum.

Apparently the sitting was postponedonthe pretextoflack ofquorum, but from the horse`s mouth budgetary allocation has put thestalwart from Manki Sharif in hot water. He is in confrontation with the party`s MNAs from the southern belt of the province while there is turmoil in the provincial assembly. His party`s MPAs and coalition partners are demanding allocations for development schemes in the budget.

One source said that speaker with the consent of the chief minister, who was sitting in his chamber, adjourned the sitting to avoid embarrassment for the government.

`After election of the speaker and leader of the House the budget session is the most extraordinary session. This happened for the first time that budget session was adjourned due to lack of required number of MPAs in the House, said an official.

`Certainly, speaker is custodian of the assembly and enjoys authority to adjourn the sitting anytime.

When the assembly is convened to discuss the budget then he can`t postpone abruptly because under the rules the House has to approve the budget within 10 days,` he said.

Only the Annual Development Programme for 2016-17 in thebudget has created rifts within the coalition. Chief Minister Pervez Khattak is in trouble. Cabinet members, ruling party`s MPAs and coalition partners are not satisfied with the allocation of funds in the ADP.

The chief minister is trying to appease members of his party as well as coalition partners. He is inviting MPAs to his chamber or talcing them to lobbies to win their supportforthe budget.

But some MPAS of PTI and JI are demanding to give them floor to express their point of view on the budget. Adviser to Chief Minister Shakeel Ahmad staged walkout from the sitting on Friday to protest unequalallocationsin the budget.

Insiders said that Mr Khattak did not want to take the risk that was why Speaker Asad Qaisar was not providing floor to `trouble makers` of PTI and JL They said that speaker had received share from the ADP for his constituency and he (Qaisar) was relaxed.

Majority of the MPAs from both sides of the floor believe that the budget serves interests of few constituencies, not districts. The annoyed MPAs complain that like previous budgets, the constituen-cies of the chief minister, speaker and senior ministers received lion`s share in the ADP.

A disgruntled MPA of PTI said that it never happened in the parllamentary history of the provincial assembly that a budget session was adjourned for two days. He said that according to the rules of business the government had only 10 days to pass the budget.

`Adjournment of the budget session means that the chief minister has admitted that he has lost majority in the House. I don`t understand the urgency which forced the speaker to adjourn the sitting despite the fact the government enjoys absolute majority in the 124-member House,` the MPA said, adding that chief minister could not tolerate criticism.

Another MPA of the ruling party said that Pervez Khattak might approve small projects for some MPAs through unspecified `umbrella schemes` to appease them. He said that the chief minister might make verbal commitments with annoyed MPAs to sanction schemes from umbrella schemes so as to pacify them for the time being.