Administrative units: Dissenting notes from govt allies added to final report

Hazara province be created, DG Khan returned to Balochistan, say parties.

ISLAMABAD:

The panel on new provinces suffered another setback on Monday when two key government allies submitted dissenting notes for the final report.

The main opposition has already taken itself out of the picture and now the Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-F (JUI-F) have raised points of contention for the report compiled by the Farhatullah Babar-led parliamentary commission. The report is likely to be presented in the National Assembly today.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was the only one to agree with the commission but it submitted a note, saying that new provinces should be carved out wherever there is demand.

The commission has already unanimously approved the name “Bahawalpur Janoobi Punjab” for the province it was going to recommend parliament created.

The commission had turned down ANP’s proposal to factor input from the three districts of Bhakkar, Mianwali and Bahawalnagar. “[The people] should be asked whether they want to be part of the new province or not,” ANP Senator Haji Adeel told The Express Tribune. This proposal was rejected by the MQM, PPP and PML-Q but is now a dissenting note in the report.

Haji Adeel argued that according to their information, people from these three districts did not want to separate from Punjab. “People should not be treated like herds of sheep… they should be given the right to talk about their fate,” he added.



The commission has gone through the entire record since 1947 and found that Bahawalpur had never been a province. “The question of restoration does not arise as it never was [one],” he said. Indeed, had there been a resolution seeking the restoration of Bahawalpur state as a province, then other such states, including Chitral and Dir, could also have followed suit.

The JUI-F also backs the inclusion of the people’s demands and opposes the proposal to include Bhakkar and Mianwali. The party’s Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri stressed that the Punjab Assembly’s unanimous resolution should not be overlooked. In fact, the party took it one step further to ask the commission to return Dera Ghazi Khan Division to Balochistan. “DG Khan was a part of Balochistan and its people have a yearning to be part of their old province,” Haider said. “It will rectify a mistake.”

For its part, another coalition partner, the PML-Q, urged the government to make its demand for the creation of a Hazara province part of the report. This demand has been rejected by the commission.

Senator Kamil Ali Agha submitted a dissenting note that their demand was not made part of the report.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2013.