Ch Nisar’s magic didn’t work in the Senate

Nisar has rather provoked the agitation-hardened Aitzaz and Rabbani to start holding ‘parallel Senate sittings’.

ISLAMABAD:

Nawaz Sharif and his aides fully know how to contest the general election and win numbers to form a government in the end. In the early 1990s, they were certainly promoted and helped by the PPP-hating military elite, a clique of ambitious bureaucrats and various parties of the religious right. In 1996, however, they played on their own and yet astonished many of us by winning a ‘historic mandate’ for the PML-N.

Both the previous governments of Nawaz Sharif failed to complete their five-year tenures. The civil and military oligarchs did gang up against them. But why they succeeded in thumping his two previous governments remains the question that Nawaz Sharif and his aides still need to fathom.

Even in the early days of their third government, they continue to disregard the fact that people elected to the National Assembly and the Senate are the real source of strength for the ruling party in a parliamentary form of government. Besides sustaining their numerical edge in the parliament, the prime minister and his aides must also walk extra miles to appease the opposition.

Nawaz Sharif hates attending parliamentary sessions. For whatever reasons, he has outsourced the job of dealing with parliamentary business to Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Throughout the previous two governments of Nawaz Sharif he also relished the reach and power of an influential member of the kitchen cabinet. The National Assembly feels good with him being in command. He has even surprised the cynical parliamentary reporters by softening Imran Khan on potentially explosive issues. Yet his magic did not seem working in the Senate.

Thanks to a laughably trivial matter, Nisar has rather provoked the agitation-hardened Aitzaz Ahsan and Raza Rabbani to start holding ‘parallel Senate sittings’ in front of the Parliament House. Even the diehard PPP loyalists, who sit in the National Assembly, did not appear too moved with road shows of their comrades from the upper house. They continued to participate in the National Assembly proceedings without much ado. Instead of taking advantage of this friendly behavior, the interior minister has acted reckless by annoying all the opposition in the National Assembly by not returning to its sitting Friday morning.

Throughout the first week of the sixth National Assembly session, our representatives went on to discuss the consequences of Hakimullah Mehsud’s killing by a drone-fired missile. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was scheduled to wind up the overstretched discussion this morning. Even otherwise, a day after the formal takeover of the TTP by Mullah Fazlullah, we desperately needed to hear some hope-inducing words from the interior minister

After all, Nisar has exclusively been dealing with the tedious job of building bridges for the TTP. For the right or wrong reasons, he had also succeeded to sell the story that most of the TTP cadres were willing to negotiate for peace but the Americans “sabotaged the opportunity by killing Hakimullah Mehsud.” Most of us are now forced to fear that by appointing Fazlullah, the TTP had communicated a very ominous message.

As if to facilitate grounds for their assault, ‘Shaheed-Islam Conferences’ have been held in two big cities of the Southern Punjab. An impressive number of youthful cadres from various Madrassas (religious schools) attended these conferences where Hakimullah Mehsud was eulogised as a great ‘fighter of Islam’.

Yet, the interior minister did not bother to return to the assembly and without taking anybody into confidence flew off to Karachi with the prime minister, presumably to oversee the progress of an operation launched against hardened criminals. Disregarding the mutual differences, all opposition members felt collectively hurt and offended over Nisar’s absence and after delivering angry speeches walked out of the house.

Not one minister could explain as to why the interior minister was not there. Finally, after desperate phone calls, Zahid Hamid was able to inform the house that Nisar had gone to Karachi and he would certainly come to the National Assembly Monday evening. That was not enough to pacify the opposition whose members are now all set to react nosily over the ‘arrogant doings of the interior minister’.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2013.