In his column for Naya Daur Urdu, Ali Warsi wrote that several PMLN lawmakers were absent from the national assembly when the budget was being passed, despite Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif’s earlier announcement that he’d do everything in his power to block the passage of the budget. “It seems that Shehbaz had negotiated a deal with the government according to which he was allowed to finish his speech without being heckled and in return he left the floor open for bulldozing of the budget he had earlier declared ‘pro-elite,’” he writes.