ISLAMABAD: An otherwise dull joint session of parliament, which has been convened to discuss the contours of the country’s foreign policy, witnessed some fireworks sparked by the Awami National Party (ANP) against the decision to equally sharing the burden of power outages by the provinces.
“We do not want a federation where we are asked to share only darkness and not light,” said ANP Senator Haji Muhammad Adeel while rejecting the decision of Second Energy Conference.
Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar, son-in-law of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif jumped in to disrupt Adeel’s speech. Immediately, he was joined by Hanif Abbasi and within seconds the house resonated with slogans against the ANP.
“We will not hear such words,” said Safdar.
Abbasi also shot back at Adeel: “Punjabis are not to be blamed for every ill.”
Despite sloganeering, Senator Adeel continued his speech while other lawmakers tried to pacify the PML-N legislators.
Such was the state of affairs at one point in time that Senator Adeel took a jibe at Safdar: “Damaad jee baith jao (son-in-law, please sit down) — to which the house broke into laughter and parliamentarians resorted to desk-thumping.
“Why should there be equitable sharing of outages?” Senator Adeel questioned while saying his province, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, had been producing electricity and gas and its resources had been ‘usurped’ during the last 60 years.
Criticising the angry PML-N lawmakers, he said the party signed the proposals of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) when US and British ambassadors met its leadership – but then suddenly changed its stance when the matter came to parliament.
“They (the Sharif family) fled the country during testing times by signing an agreement (with Pervez Musharraf) and then started falsifying it. The ANP, however, has no such record,” he said.
In response to ANP’s criticism, MNA Safdar said sarcastically: “Perhaps we have no idea regarding the worth of independence and the sacrifices our forefathers made to get this country”.
“If someone does not like this country, he can leave since we want this Pakistan,” he added.
Meanwhile, members of parliament raised several issues on point of orders since there was no headway over the PCNS recommendations.
Maulana Ghafoor Haideri of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) called for evolving a strategy to address the deteriorating law and order situation across the country.
Senator Kamil Ali Agha from the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) projected his party’s proposals to steer the country out of the energy crisis while lamenting that their “proposals were not taken seriously”.
“The formula given by Chaudry Shujaat Hussain can help overcome load shedding in four months,” he asserted.
Yasmeen Rehman from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) condemned US drone attacks and said Nato supply should be reopened on “conditions which are beneficial for Pakistan”.
(Read: Tackling the energy crisis)
Published in The Express Tribune, April 11th, 2012.
COMMENTS (16)
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Bravo Haji Adeel the rights of Pakhtunkhwa have been trampled on for too long! As for my dear country man in Punjab who are fortunate enough that the Pakhtun are fighting the War on Terror whilst they have normalcy, partly due to the spineless pandering to terrorist. Just be grateful to Pakhtunkwa.
anp don't want federation, but what will happen to all the pahktuns who live in punjab and sindh if the federation is gone?? a huge number of pahktuns work in punjab's industries. more work in transport section. what will happen to them. i am a pahktun living in lahore. when i hear the talks of nationalists i want to throw my shoes on them.
Haji Adeel is right in saying that we do not want a federation where we are asked to share only darkness and not light. perhaps no one would want a federation like that. but i wonder when would we learn to live as a nation and not as panjabi, sindi, pathan and balochi. i think now its time to move forward as n nation. the current challenges, Pakistan is facing today, demand our unity. we might overcome the energy shortage but we will fail as a nation if we do not learn from past mistakes.
@John: ANP is right in the sense that they have a resource in abundance then why they should its citizen’s suffer.
Spot on. Punjab has abundant wheat grains supply. Maybe we should export that instead of giving quota to NWFP floor mills only to see a substancial portion of wheat getting smuggled to Afghanistan.
Sind has the only shipping port. Maybe it should levy duty on import / export cargoes of upcountry areas.
Baluchistan should similarly not allow its gas to be used for running cars in Lahore, when its citizens cant afford even motobikes.
And so on and so forth.
We don't need to blame ANP, it is the leadership if Punjab that is at fault.
60+ years and still the province is dependent on others for basic resources.
If we had a not so dumb leadership in Punjab, the province should have been self sufficient in electricity generation like in the neighboring Punjab.
ANP is right in the sense that they have a resource in abundance then why they should its citizen's suffer.
In KPK, they have done nothing for people, in Karachi they are killing people, and they still talk about federation. I dont like such politicians.
Bravo! Adeel. Yours appear to be one of the few sane voices in the Parliament. I loved it when you previously said why a non muslim cannot be the president or prime minister of the country.
It is has been time wasting activity by the parliamentarians. Collectively they were required to come out with out of box solution instead they have come with solution of sharing the misery equitably (load-shedding). Right mind set is required we need people with foresight and bold decision making instead we have people who handle problems with their myopic vision.
but suddenly anp are everyones hero against mqm. then they are the patriots
how dumb is that, u cripple punjab u cripple majority of the industry of the whole country!! wait why would anp care after all they love destroying national asset ( railways)
to save their Railway minister from corruption,ANP is using these tactics.
@Blithe: For God's sake stop accusing people of what their parents may or may not have done at the time of partition. Every one long time ago accepted that Pakistan has come in to being and we all need to look towards the future for making Pakistan a prosperous and progressing country.
Two quick points here. Is there a family member of Nawaz or Shahbaz who does not hold party position or a member of legislature? Nawaz is the only exception now as he is fulfilling his promises to generals and the guarantor "King", however, he is still the chief, hence the name PML-N. When would any Pakistani leader demand using the nuclear knowhow to produce the required electricity? Even Iran is trying to do that and most countries of the world produce their electricity via nuclear technology.
Haji Adeel should direct his venom for the his fellow ANP politician , the Federal Railways minister , who has single habdedly destroyed Pakistan Railways through corruption and mismanagement
ANP is severely mistaken. WAPDA built generation capacity in the formerly named NWFP for all of Pakistan.
Secondly, KPK has the worst recoveries (read as biggest defaulters) in terms of electricity bills. In contrast Punjab has the best highest recoveries in Pakistan.
ANP is known for its devisive politics. They never supported Pakistan. I'm not surprised by this ANP rhetoric.
Pakistan is not a natural nation. That is all one can say. Best, Shakib