Invisible hands hatching a new challenge for PPP

With passionate shrieks and morality-driven wails, a peculiar group of TV anchors had hyped the situation to a point where most people were forced to imagine that, after appearing before the Supreme Court Thursday morning, Yousaf Raza Gilani would go straight to Adyala Jail.

It did not happen.

After attending the court proceedings, the prime minister drove to his office and most ministers went to their homes to catch up with sleep lost over the past three days. It is little wonder, then, that when the National Assembly resumed meeting later in the evening, the attendance was noticeably thin on the treasury benches.

The brilliance of Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan has surely managed relief for the Zardari-Gilani government. It now has ample time to focus on emerging as the single largest party in the upper house of parliament, when elections for over half of its seats are held in the first week of March.

The sabotaging habits of our viciously divided politicians die hard, however. I have it from highly reliable sources that a certain group of the PML-N hawks is now working overtime to persuade Shahbaz Sharif that he should seriously consider the possibility of getting the provincial assembly that he heads in Punjab dissolved.

Most members of this group are known for their ‘patriotic concerns’ and connections with monitors and regulators of national security affairs. They are the ones who had pushed Nawaz Sharif to approach the Supreme Court with a petition seeking nothing but the whole truth on ‘Memogate.’ Some colleagues, who maintain round the clock contacts with these members, kept telling me in total confidence that Shahbaz was all ears.

I have serious doubts.

Thanks to the rise of Imran Khan, the PML-N is no longer confident that it will return to the Punjab assembly with a formidable majority. It rather has better chances of managing more seats for its nominees during the Senate elections while keeping the incumbent house intact. Asking for its dissolution has all the possibilities of pushing the PML-N into total wilderness.

While the PML-N seriously needs to draw up a new plan to bounce back on the political scene, elements from within the invisible setters of power games in this country are working overtime to launch ‘new faces’ with the potential to change the political scene in Sindh. These elements had been seriously thinking that with active involvement of Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the PTI might click in Sindh as well. After not accepting the change of his portfolio, the former foreign minister worked hard to prove his potential in that province. In the end, though, he could only attract the hard core disciples of the mystic school that he represents as a Makhdom of Bahauddin Zikria.

His joining the PTI didn’t help either.

No doubt, Imran Khan attracted an impressive crowd for a rally in Karachi on Dec 25 last year. Yet, its composition remained ‘urban’. Both within the crowd and on the star-studded stage, you could hardly notice a face that seemed representing rural Sindh.

Little wonder, wagging tongues are claiming that someone else was badly required to trigger the “desire for change” among Sindhi speaking pockets.

After parting with his friends of 40 years, Dr Zulfikar Mirza indeed appeared as if ‘tailor made’.

Asif Zardari’s illness and the pacifying efforts of his spouse, Dr Fehmida Mirza forced him to opt for discreet silence, however. The PPP continues to monopolise the so-called Sindh card and in spite of regular visits and passionate speechmaking, Nawaz Sharif could yet not damage its potential.

More than three reliable sources have now revealed to me that in about the next three days, a serious attempt would be made to launch a ‘new face with the message of change.’ A scion of a media-connected family that owned a powerful group of regional newspapers and a television channel is working hard to assemble a big crowd at Bhit Shah on Jan 22. If the sought out crowd looked ‘mammoth’ on TV screens, a new party “with no name and face connected with usual waderas dominating the political scene of Sindh since ages” would be announced. I am also told that the hyper active and diligent Marvi Memon has yet not joined the PTI simply because her “well wishers” were advising her to wait for the potential of this political party that “staff solution writers” eagerly wanted for attracting “the mass of middle class Sindhis.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2012.