War of words: The unfinished Khanpur Road that was paved with promises is now lined with ire

Three political bigwigs fight over who gets credit for arranging funding for reconstruction.

HARIPUR:

Political turncoats are reviled for their choice to switch allegiances. In Sardar Mushtaq Khan’s case, he left the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz for the Pakistan Peoples Party—but only because they promised him money to rebuild Khanpur Road. Work on the road was inaugurated on Wednesday but by his political rival, Omer Ayub Khan. And now a political storm in a tea cup is brewing over who deserves credit for the project.  

An important road

The 44km road is believed to have been built during the Sikh era but was last carpeted three decades back. It has been in shambles and its condition worsened after the rains of 2009. The road is a main artery that eases the load on GT Road and Hattar Road. It also shortens the journey between Rawalpindi and the rest of Hazara.

It is also used by the people who live in the 120 localities along its length. Tourists use it to visit Buddhist sites and picnic points from Chechian village to Jandial town in the Khanpur Valley.

Political assertions

Given the importance of the road, whoever gets credit for rebuilding it could also win the hearts of voters. This is why several political figures are jostling to emerge on top.

The first of them, Sardar Mushtaq Khan, appears to have the strongest claims. He left the PML-N and joined the PPP in December 2012 primarily because Asif Zardari promised him a development package which included the reconstruction of Khanpur Road. Indeed, on December 19 that year, Sardar Mushtaq formally declared he was joining the PPP during former PM Raja Pervez Ashraf’s visit to Kot Najibullah. The PM announced that he was accepting all of Sardar Mushtaq’s demands, including the construction of the Khanpur-Taxila Road within two months.

The road was never rebuilt. More background politics came to play. There was more to Sardar Mushtaq’s decision to join the PPP. He was upset with the PML-N.

He told his electorate that he had been ditched by the PML-N when they allowed back into their fold two men: Goher Ayub Khan, the former National Assembly speaker, and his son Omar Ayub Khan, former state minister for finance in the Shaukat Aziz cabinet.

And when the road project did not take off, even though tenders were advertised, Sardar Mushtaq pointed the finger at Omer Ayub. Sardar Mushtaq claimed that Omer Ayub had influenced his father-in-law to throw a spanner in the works. His father-in-law was the then-provincial president of the PPP, Anwar Saifullah. This has been repeatedly denied by Omar Ayub Khan.

Another politician to enter the fray during the last government was Senator Talha Mehmood. He said several times at public gatherings in Haripur that he had won the PPP government’s approval (during Yousaf Gilani’s tenure). But no work really started.

Fighting afresh

The spotlight was retrained on Khanpur Road when this new government came into power. The PTI’s former MNA from the road’s constituency, Haripur, Dr Raja Amir Zaman, took it up with the National Highway Authority but never got the funding.

Then, three months ago, the political landscape changed when PTI MNA Dr Raja Amir Zaman lost to Omer Ayub Khan in the re-election for NA-19. Omar Ayub Khan was made the chairman of the National Assembly’s standing committee for finance.

On Wednesday, Omer Ayub inaugurated the project from Batrasi village in Haripur where he claimed he got Rs66.6 million for the road.

News of Omer Ayub inaugurating the project elicited swift reaction from other claimants. Sardar Mushtaq repeated that it was on his request that PM Raja Pervez Ashraf had approved the project. But that it was put on the back-burner after the change of government.

Senator Talha Mehmood’s spokesman scoffed at Omar Ayub’s claim, adding that the senator had the funds approved in 2011 but that the project was delayed over the Punjab government’s reluctance to construct the portion of the road that fell in its limits. The spokesman also gave credit to PML-N’s MPA Raja Faisal Zaman (the younger brother of former Haripur PTI MNA Dr Raja Amir Zaman) for raising the issue. He accused Omar Ayub of putting his name on the plaque for a project that he and Sardar Mushtaq had fought for to get funding.

For his part, Omar Ayub lashed out at these leaders, saying that if they had been able to get the money, what had prevented them from spending it during the last six years?

The actual work on the road isn’t expected to begin any time soon. But it appears that the political wrangling will continue.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2014.