Party men too

Still struggling to win back the disgruntled allies at the Centre, the PTI is now faced with disgruntled party men too, in Punjab. A group of 20 MPAs, led by Sardar Shahabuddin, has added to the ruling party’s headache of keeping the coalition intact — both at the Centre and in Punjab. The estranged legislators — half of whom belong to South Punjab — are openly expressing their resentment on “being overlooked in the distribution of funds for public welfare” and calling for the “ignored” districts of DG Khan, Bhakkar, Layyah, Vehari, Hafizabad, Chiniot, Sargodha and Rawalpindi to be developed like Lahore and Faisalabad.

The group of 20 has gathered under the banner of ‘Supremacy of Parliament’ in a clear expression of their disapproval of the Centre’s hold on the affairs of the country’s biggest province. This gives credence to the claims being made in the media that people’s representatives, in general, are unhappy with Punjab being run by the federal government through the chief secretary and the inspector general of police, and consider Punjab CM Usman Buzdar as a mere figurehead with no say in the affairs that matter.

This rebellion may well be an indication of the changing political times. It may well be a fake expression of displeasure, actually meant to pave the way for a change in the government set-up. It reminds one of a similar rising by a group of eight MNAs and MPs from South Punjab barely two months before the last general election held on July 25, 2018. The group — in the name of the rights of the deprived people of South Punjab — defected from the PML-N, then ruling both the Centre and Punjab, to join the PTI, sensing the change in the wind direction. But on joining the PTI and later becoming a part of the ruling coalition, the group named ‘Junoobi Punjab Sooba Mahaz’ hardly did anything towards carving out a separate province for the people of southern Punjab. The politics of vested interest. Isn’t it?

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2020.

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