“They [women of the PTI] are leftover ruins. They are leftover waste. [PTI’s] garbage is left over which needs to be cleaned,” he said on Tuesday during a joint session of the Parliament in Islamabad.

The PTI parliamentarians protested against Asif’s remarks, as Senator Dr Zarqa Taimur described it as “shocking” that a seasoned politician would use pass such remarks about fellow female politicians.

The term was promptly expunged by NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf after PTI’s women parliamentarians protested against it and demanded the speaker to expunge it.

The minister has in past also received flak for calling former PTI leader Shireen Mazari a “tractor trolley” during a session of the National Assembly.

In a debate in the lower house of Parliament on June 8, 2016, Asif pointed towards Mazari and said: “Someone should keep this tractor trolley quiet.” The minister then went on to ask the former PTI leader to transform her “masculine voice into a more feminine one.”

Anchorperson Absa Komal in a tweet said that this is not the first time Asif has made derogatory remarks about female politicians that too on the floor of the house.

Komal quoted the minister as saying “These characterless women cannot lecture us. A man who needs women to defend him, it speaks volumes about his bravery”.

PTI’s Senator Fawzia Arshad in a tweet said that Asif compared the PTI parliament members to garbage “and proved that this person is the owner of a very degenerate thought”.

“Khawaja Asif has used nasty words about women before,” she wrote.

Journalist Muqadas Farooq Awan called for women journalists to boycott the media coverage of Asif.

“This is not the first time that Khawaja Asif has used inappropriate language about women, women journalists should boycott the media of Khawaja Asif, he may throw similar flowers about us tomorrow,” she wrote on Twitter.