The one politician who impressed me

Journalism is not only my profession but also my passion. During my years as a journalist, I have met many political leaders and visited many sessions of the assembly but no one impressed me until recently, when I got the chance to meet first-timer, a gold medalist from LUMS, Hina Pervez Butt, at the Punjab Assembly. Her strong arguments and opinions regarding the resolutions moved in the house in favour of local bodies election, empowering the panchayat system and mitigating corruption really stood out.

She advocated that local bodies elections should be on a non-party basis as it happens in other countries like the UK, the US, India, Iran and Iraq. She strongly opined that the elected person should be a responsible one, with a good reputation, as at the lowest tier it shouldn’t matter which party the person belongs to but, rather whether or not he/she is the best for the people.

Butt strongly believes that the WASA, LDA, LTC and LWS should be under district authority, there should be 13 members of the union council, the health and education authority should also be under the district-level and finally, the finance commission should make sure that funds are judiciously allocated between urban and rural areas.

Butt also bravely argued in favour of the panchayat system and said that it is difficult for people in the rural areas to find speedy justice from the police and the courts. The decisions passed by panchayats should follow the law and they should have women representation, along with the creation of health and education authorities at the panchayat level.

The statements made by her to mitigate corruption, empowering the panchayat system and strengthening the local government system were quite thought-provoking and visionary, which gave me all the reasons to believe that she had the potential to lead the country and conquer the arena of politics in the future. It also leads me to think that the PML-N’s decision to bring young, dynamic people like Butt into the assemblies is a step in the right direction. To bring the country out of the prevailing economic crunch, we need more such educated and visionary people in politics. 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2013.