THERE are of ten moments when the government and the opposition appear to be partners in the conspiracy to ignore parliament`s role as the country`s most efficient search engine for solutions to the people`s problems. Such a moment is once more upon us. On Friday, the National Assembly was prorogued without a debate on the `mini budget` presented by the treasury a couple of days earlier. The Assembly had seen plenty of action since that presentation, none of which was of any use to the people of Pakistan.

A controversy erupted after the government benches reacted angrily to a provocation by the opposition -indeed, a trademarked PTI response. The issue was the Sahiwal shootout, and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif did not let up the opportunity to take to task Prime Minister Imran Khan, who happened to attend the session, and his permanently edgy lieutenants. Mr Khan could have stood up and enlightened his own camp on the merits of restraint in the interest of order, but perhaps it was too much to expect from the leader of a fiercely combative force that has been confronting the opposition in parliament. Instead, the battle intensified when a member of the prime minister`s inner circle, Naeemul Haque, bombarded Mr Sharif with a series of aggressive tweets. Mr Haque appeared to suggest that he was capable of combining simultaneously in his person the authorities vested in NAB and the speaker of the National Assembly to summarily punish the errant opposition leader who was in the House, taking a short break from his lockup in Lahore. He warned Mr Sharif that his appearances in parliament could be cut short if he continued with his wayward ways in other words if he did not change his tone when addressing the honourable prime minister. The opposition rounded it off nicely by proclaiming that it possessed some hidden powers to block the prime minister`s entry in the Assembly.

True, no opposition is in parliament to make things comfortable for the government benches in fact, no opposition is worth its salt unless it holds the government accountable for its actions. But does that responsibility always have to be expressed in a way that disturbs the functioning of parliament? For instance, there are many voices, both inside and outside parliament, that have criticised the government`s mini budget presented on Jan 23. Instead of creating enough noise to prevent a debate on the exercise altogether, the opposition could have played a more positive role by coming up with robust arguments on why the budget was flawed. But such maturity seems to elude our lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. It is all about personalised politics, and parliament has sadly become an arena for all manner of blame game and mudslinging a great disservice to those who voted with such high hopes.