Trifurcating Punjab

PML-N-led opposition wants Bahawalpur as a third branch

A South Punjab province appears in doldrums — at least for now. This is what a constitutional amendment bill, introduced in the National Assembly by the PML-N on Tuesday, suggests. While the PTI wants the country’s biggest province to be bifurcated into Punjab and South Punjab provinces in line with its election pledge, the PML-N-led opposition wants it trifurcated, with Bahawalpur sought as a third branch, under the bill moved by Rana Sanaullah. Even the PML-Q, a ruling party’s ally, has sided with the opposition on the issue. However, with a two-thirds majority in parliament eluding each side, Punjab appears certain to stay one — at least till the current term of the PTI-led government lasts.

The issue of rights for people living in the southern parts of Punjab has been used over the years as a tool for political point-scoring. Almost all leading political parties have secured seats in parliament on the basis of pledges for a separate province within Punjab for the deprived dwellers of the lower parts of the province. The most recent of the lot is Imran Khan’s PTI which was sided with more than a dozen electables of the area at a time when the 2018 general elections were barely months away. A Junoobi Punjab Suba Mahaz — led by Khusro Bakhtiar who is now a minister in Imran Khan’s cabinet — was carved out of the PML-N on the pretext that the party was not sincere vis-à-vis the rights of the people in lower Punjab. The Mahaz finally merge into the PTI helping it win electoral battles in southern Punjab, and get into a position to form government with the support of smaller parties and independent candidates.

While a justifiable excuse of insufficient parliamentary strength comes to the PTI’s rescue over its yet-unfulfilled pledge about a Southern Punjab province that also forms part of its 100-day manifesto, the PML-N too only appears to be complicating the issue by seeking to trifurcate the Punjab province.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2019.

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