Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf (PTI) rejected the federal budget 2025-26 both inside and outside the National Assembly on Tuesday and called it an “IMF-dictated budget” that lacks public legitimacy and launched a two-shaped attack: an aggressive protest on the assembly floor and a pointed press conference soon after.
The finance minister’s second consecutive budget speech started under fire, with opposition benches broke out in noisy protest from Get-Go.
When Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb began revealing the budget, PTI legislators rose at their feet, budget books knocked on their desks, blowing whistles and held posters up to release former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Throughout the presentation, they sang slogans against the government and branded the budget utterly and anti-people. The UPROART of the rebellion pressed the Finance Minister, while state members dressed headphones to set the opposition’s noise.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who entered the house in the middle of the upset, remained sitting and unreasonable as reigning party legislators formed a protective cordon around him to avoid any direct clash with the protesting members.
Opposition leader in the National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan led from the front and set the tone of a coordinated protest and ensured that any PTI legislator played their role.
As he stayed on his feet throughout the session, he repeatedly threw the budget book on his desk and signaled to co -members to stay engaged. Legislators tore papers and threw them into the air at intervals.
After the initial outbreak, opposition members moved to the area between the speaker’s desk and the prime minister’s seat and continued their choir of slogans without recharging.
The disturbance repeated the excited scenes from last year’s budget session when the Finance Minister’s virgin speech was facing an equally turbulent reception from PTI-Over-Sunni Itehad Council legislators.
So, as now, the protests included high song, desk-sloping, paper charging and proximity to the prime minister’s seat, causing treasury members to act as a human shield.
Shortly after the session, senior PTI leaders, including NA Recovery Manager Omar Ayub, PTI Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram, PTI General Salman Salman Akram Raja and head of opposition in Senate Shibli Faraz, dealt with a joint press conference that repeated their categorical rejection of the budget.
“This is not a people’s budget; it’s an IMF budget designed to earn elite interests,” the opposition leader said.
Ayub questioned the government’s financial claims, especially the expected GDP growth of 2.7%, and asked sarcastically: “Who counted the donkeys and distinguished between the four-legged and two-legged?”
He rejected the budget as detached from reality and pointed to elaborate inequality, inflation and falling industrial production.
PTI -Information Secretary was more funny and called the budget “financial gallows” for the people and said it was not a budget for the nation rather a public execution plan. He also said that PTI considers this a “Leela Budget” – which suggests that the budget is a father who ultimately sacrifices ordinary people as goats at slaughter, while the interests of the elite are protected.
He questioned the logic behind token -placement for the employee class and warned that the development allocations were unrealistic and unjustifiable.
Opposition leader in the Senate, Shibli Faraz, added that the government had broken all previous records of elitist budgeting.
The opposition leader in the Senate said budgets have been submitted for the ruling class for decades, but this year’s budget has broken all previous records of elite budgeting. Critical the government said Faraz, “When such legislation and budget production takes place in parliament, it is not only undemocratic but hostile to the country’s interest.”
Faraz also noted that the Afghan currency had appreciated more than the Pakistani rupie and called it an indicator of the government’s failure. “When a government comes to power through form-47s, it lacks the confidence needed for serious reform,” he said, warning that economic manipulation without legitimacy would not bring progress.
Faraz, who was tackling the media, condemned the government’s handling of inflation and taxation, especially for employees. He noticed that the grade was relentlessly pressed and said, “As much blood as it can be drawn from them is drawn.”
He questioned how a country could move on while working on what he described as “IMF crutches”.
Faraz also criticized the state’s response to peaceful demands from government employees and noted that when government workers began protesting for their rights, the entire red zone of Islamabad was sealed.
“Those who ask for their legal rights are treated as if they are doing something wrong,” he said. The PTI General Salman Salman Akram Raja described the document as one that “makes the rich richer and the poor poor,” and said that the wage class and poor people were further burdened.
All leaders also repeated their demands for release of PTI founder Imran Khan and his wife and described their imprisonment as illegal and politically motivated. They called the ongoing legislative process illegal and demanded the restoration of constitutional order, the public mandate and the rule of law.
Previously, the protest in the Assembly followed a detailed strategy discussion at PTI’s parliamentary party meeting held hours before the session. The party rejected the budget 2025-26 directly and called it a continuation of policies dictated by the IMF.
Legislators reiterated their attitude that the current government had no mandate to present the budget and argued that it was formed through manipulated election results and not reflected people’s will.
In its official statement, the PTI parliamentary party declared that the government had no legal or moral authority to legislate on behalf of the public. “This is an IMF budget, not a people’s budget,” the party said, promising to resist its passage on each forum, including both the National Assembly and the Senate. It condemned the financial difficulties that ordinary citizens face and said that while the poor were crushed during inflation, the ruling elite continued their lavish lifestyle uncontrollably.
The party also expressed strong rejection of NA speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq’s behavior and accused him of acting as a partisan figure rather than a neutral depot man for the house.
Legislators demanded that the speaker act according to his constitutional role rather than earning party interests. It was also decided at the meeting that a privileged movement would be moved if opposition speeches continued to be censored on national broadcasts.
PTI legislators further decided to raise the question of media outage on their speeches in the assembly and protest outside if necessary.
