‘Protest session’: Why did the govt send Abid Sher Ali?

“I don’t think Sher Ali was sent by the government. It might have his own initiative,” says PPP Senator Saeed Ghani.

ISLAMABAD:

Besides failed backstage efforts at persuading the opposition MPs back into the house, the government did not make any other serious effort at reconciliation. The government sent Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali to speak to and convince the protesting senators, including Ahsan and Rabbani, to end their boycott.

Instead the senators asked him to attend their informal session “as federal minister and answer their questions”. Abid Sher Ali said he would not sit but he was ready to take their questions. Slogans of ‘shame, shame’ ensued and the protesting senators refused to go back inside.

“You should go back or else your interior minister would not be happy with you,” the senators quipped at Abid Sher Ali, who left without any effort at negotiation.

“I don’t think Sher Ali was sent by the government. It might have his own initiative,” said PPP Senator Saeed Ghani. He was not influential in resolving the matter as he is not a senior enough PML-N member, he said. The government did not send any senior leader, he added.

A PPP senator, who did not want to be named, said, “The government is not serious in resolving the deadlock, which is peculiar as this non-seriousness favours the opposition’s stance.”

Earlier National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq asked Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai to talk to the two sides and try to resolve the issue. “It was not in my knowledge whether a meeting with Achakzai was held or not,” said Ghani.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2013.