The BackBencher: And they all lived happily ever after

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement also backed the motion to have Rahim’s seat vacated.

KARACHI:

Congratulations! And celebrations! The spirit haunting the Sindh Assembly has finally been banished.

The barely suppressed looks of glee on the faces of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MPAs when the contentious issue of former Sindh chief minister and head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (likeminded) faction Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s membership was finally solved. In the morning, Sindh Assembly MPAs clutched copies of a motion calling for Rahim’s seat to be vacated because he hadn’t attended the assembly for 40 consecutive days.

To borrow a lyric or two from Nine Inch Nails, what have the MPAs become, once Rahim’s sweetest friends? The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) also backed the motion to have Rahim’s seat vacated, and the sole protesting voice was PML-Q (likeminded) MPA Razzaque Rahimoon, who warned that this wasn’t a good tradition to set. Everyone, Mr Rahim, goes away in the end.

There was much mirth at the various leave applications Rahim has submitted over the months, citing ill-health, a medical advisory to not travel by air and the latest, citing security fears.

Sindh Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani innocently said: “We didn’t kick him out. You know when we investigated who hit him with a shoe, we discovered it was someone who had served as his secretary, who said Rahim used to abuse him and lock him in a room.”

Durrani also appealed to the president, the Sindh chief minister and the Sindh government to involve Rahim in the ‘reinvestigation’ of the October 18, 2007 bomb blasts targeting the late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s convoy.

There was more merriment in store for the MPAs on Thursday. Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Khuhro announced that the assembly had completed 105 days of business – upping its constitutional requirement by five days – and could now conclude its fourth parliamentary year.

There were lots of thank yous, including to Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ayaz Soomro. “It would be unfair if I don’t mention Ayaz Soomro,” Khuhro said, while the long-suffering PPP parliamentary leader and Senior Education and Literacy Minister Pir Mazharul Haq proclaimed that he was “the most unpopular person in the house.” All the firefighting and negotiating can’t be an easy job, and Haq will have a respite for a while. MQM deputy parliamentary leader and Youth Affairs Minister Faisal Subzwari recited a couplet; the MPAs also smiled and sighed, and then they all filed out into the sunshine where reporters besieged them for sound bites on the banished MPA – “through constitutional means!” – as Information Minister Shazia Marri trilled.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2012.