MQM set for Senate clash

ISLAMABAD: A day after submitting two separate privilege motions against PML-N chief and his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the National Assembly, the MQM did the same in the Senate on Thursday.

The move was initiated in response to PML-N’s criticism of MQM chief Altaf Hussain for his ‘controversial’ statement, inviting ‘patriotic’ military generals to step in to save the country from the clutches of ‘corrupt and feudalistic’ politicians. The assertion has since been rocking the national political scene, triggering angry reaction from almost all political parties.

Federal Ports and Shipping Minister Senator Babar Ghauri led a group of MQM lawmakers to submit privilege motions in the upper house of parliament.

On Wednesday, Dr Farooq Sattar told reporters after submitting the motions in the National Assembly that Nawaz Sharif “must come clean on why he betrayed the nation and chose to leave for Saudi Arabia along with his family after the 1999 military coup”.

He also called on the PML-N chief to clarify the issue of signing any agreement with the then military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, which he had been denying for more than seven years.

One of the two privileged motions is seeking to initiate a debate on the agreement between Musharraf and Nawaz under which the Sharif family was sent on 10-year exile to Saudi Arabia.

“The reality must be presented before the public…We want this,” Dr Sattar said about the alleged deal.

In the second motion, the MQM criticised the PML-N for its ‘non-democratic behavior’, accusing it of having enjoyed “good relations with the army” in the past.

It said that Shahbaz Sharif, the Punjab chief minister and younger brother of Nawaz, and Chaudhry Nisar, one of the party’s top leaders, have held secret meetings with the Chief of Army Staff Parvez Ashfaq Kayani, but failed to take the nation into confidence about the outcome of these meetings.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2010.