PPP’s Sherry Rehman says minister must apologise after heated exchange with Palwasha Khan during Senate panel

PPP leader Sherry Rehman has said that Minister for Communications Abdul Aleem Khan must apologise following his heated exchange with Senator Palwasha Khan during a Senate panel meeting on Friday.

Pal­washa, who is also a PPP leader, and the federal minister had traded sharp remarks on Friday over the construction of a road allegedly benefiting a private housing society during a meeting of the Senate Stan­ding Committee on Com­mu­ni­cations.

In a post on the social media platform X late on Friday night, Rehman said, “What happened today in a Senate standing committee can neither become normalised nor considered acceptable. No federal minister should speak the way Aleem Khan did with Senator Palwasha in a communications committee meeting.”

Rehman further said that it was Senator Palwasha’s “absolute responsibility and right to ask questions” and to hold the government accountable.

“He must apologise. I am not even going to say that it is necessary because she is a woman. She is due that basic right of respect as an honourable member of Parliament from a federal minister,” she said.

The confrontation between the minister and Senator Palwasha had begun when the latter questioned whether public funds had been used to build a road primarily serving a private housing scheme in Lahore.

Responding angrily, the minister warned that personal attacks would be met in kind. “If you make personal attacks, you will face the same behaviour,” he said, adding that while the government was willing to clarify its position, it would not lower itself to the level he felt the senator had adopted.

However, she maintained it was her right as a parliamentarian to question the use of taxpayers’ money and reiterated that she had merely sought clarification on whether the road had been constructed to benefit a private housing society. The exchange escalated further when the minister accused committee members of being “blackmailers and dishonest”, prom­pting strong objections.

Senator Pal­wa­sha said she had been humiliated by the minister’s remarks and announced she would raise the matter with her party’s top leadership. Following the intervention of the committee chairman, Senator Pervaiz Rashid, the minister tendered an apology. But Senator Palwasha declined to accept it.

Speaking to the media outside the Parliament House following the argument, she said that if “a road funded by the public is being built, then why can we not question whether someone is trying to seek benefits for his private business?”

Expressing disappointment at the minister‘s behaviour, she said it was the “collective demeanour of Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet”.