PPP backbenchers mock PML-N ‘revolutionaries’
Speaker after speaker from their benches would recall sacrifices Bhutto’s devotees have consistently been making.
ISLAMABAD:
In order to quickly wrap up speeches on budgetary proposals, the National Assembly also met on Saturday. Yet, most ministers and legislators, especially from Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, preferred to leave for home constituencies; they hate staying in Islamabad during the weekends.
Their absence helped a number of backbenchers from Sindh and Balochistan to highlight the poverty and gloom of their areas.
Speaker after speaker from their benches would recall sacrifices Bhutto’s devotees have consistently been making for the cause of democracy in this country since General Ziaul Haq’s martial law of 1977.
They dismissed Nawaz Sharif and the crowd of ‘recent-revolutionaries’ around him as “made-for-television heroes, who can’t survive even a few minutes without air conditioners”. Dr Amish Lal, a minority member from Sindh, evoked repeated and loud laughter while taunting and mimicking the PML-N’s “posturing as an anti-establishment party”.
For most journalists sitting in the gallery, such speeches conveyed a ‘sour grapes’ envy. The PPP backbenchers seemed to be disregarding the reality that things do not stay the same in politics. With times, values change as well. People mostly focus on the here and now. And if you dispassionately analyse the current domestic political scene, Nawaz Sharif does appear to be questioning the authority.
Like it not, the killing of Osama bin Ladin baffled the people of Pakistan. They no longer feel secure about the defence of this country. By sneaking into the PNS Mehran in Karachi, terrorists compounded this sense of insecurity. It was in this backdrop when an unarmed youth was brutally slain in Karachi by Rangers. People want their representatives to seek answers to questions triggered by these events. General discussion on budgetary proposals in both houses of parliament did furnish the appropriate time and space to put these questions. Only a few PML-N legislators took advantage of this opportunity, however.
It will not be fair to disregard the limits of Pakistan Peoples Party while leading a coalition government. The deliberate silence of its leaders might be forgiven in the said context. But how can one justify when ministers and lead parliamentary players of the same party appear going an extra mile to “protect the good image” of our national security outfits.
Trustworthy sources have claimed that so far the PML-N leaders are just not convinced and time has come when the prime minister must put some personal calls. Will they deliver? I asked an opposition leader. “Just read the speech Mian Nawaz Sharif had delivered in Lahore on Friday, while addressing a memorial reference for a murdered journalist, (Syed Saleem Shahzad), to draw your own conclusion,” was the answer I got.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 12th, 2011.
In order to quickly wrap up speeches on budgetary proposals, the National Assembly also met on Saturday. Yet, most ministers and legislators, especially from Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, preferred to leave for home constituencies; they hate staying in Islamabad during the weekends.
Their absence helped a number of backbenchers from Sindh and Balochistan to highlight the poverty and gloom of their areas.
Speaker after speaker from their benches would recall sacrifices Bhutto’s devotees have consistently been making for the cause of democracy in this country since General Ziaul Haq’s martial law of 1977.
They dismissed Nawaz Sharif and the crowd of ‘recent-revolutionaries’ around him as “made-for-television heroes, who can’t survive even a few minutes without air conditioners”. Dr Amish Lal, a minority member from Sindh, evoked repeated and loud laughter while taunting and mimicking the PML-N’s “posturing as an anti-establishment party”.
For most journalists sitting in the gallery, such speeches conveyed a ‘sour grapes’ envy. The PPP backbenchers seemed to be disregarding the reality that things do not stay the same in politics. With times, values change as well. People mostly focus on the here and now. And if you dispassionately analyse the current domestic political scene, Nawaz Sharif does appear to be questioning the authority.
Like it not, the killing of Osama bin Ladin baffled the people of Pakistan. They no longer feel secure about the defence of this country. By sneaking into the PNS Mehran in Karachi, terrorists compounded this sense of insecurity. It was in this backdrop when an unarmed youth was brutally slain in Karachi by Rangers. People want their representatives to seek answers to questions triggered by these events. General discussion on budgetary proposals in both houses of parliament did furnish the appropriate time and space to put these questions. Only a few PML-N legislators took advantage of this opportunity, however.
It will not be fair to disregard the limits of Pakistan Peoples Party while leading a coalition government. The deliberate silence of its leaders might be forgiven in the said context. But how can one justify when ministers and lead parliamentary players of the same party appear going an extra mile to “protect the good image” of our national security outfits.
Trustworthy sources have claimed that so far the PML-N leaders are just not convinced and time has come when the prime minister must put some personal calls. Will they deliver? I asked an opposition leader. “Just read the speech Mian Nawaz Sharif had delivered in Lahore on Friday, while addressing a memorial reference for a murdered journalist, (Syed Saleem Shahzad), to draw your own conclusion,” was the answer I got.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 12th, 2011.