The assembly descends into trivial tamasha debate

If you ask me, Nisar mostly acts unbearably hawkish and almost like a bigot while projecting some political points.

If you ask me, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan mostly acts unbearably hawkish and almost like a bigot while projecting some political points. Yet even his most ardent critic has to admit that he remains the only minister of Nawaz Sharif’s government who takes the parliamentary business too seriously. Most commentators keep wondering about the ‘real objectives’ that Imran Khan wants to achieve by nonstop rubbing of the demand that a ruthless forensic analysis of the electoral process in four national assembly constituencies, which only his party had identified, must be held to find out “what really happened on May 11, 2013”.

As a hardened player of power games, Nisar must have also been pondering over the same question. In the same context, he did not sound outlandish while claiming in the house Monday evening that the PTI was perhaps preparing grounds to enforce fresh elections.

The forensic analysis of the balloting process in some constituencies of Karachi, lest you forget, had already been completed. At the end of it, we only discovered that the digitalized system of NADRA failed to “verify” thousands of thumb impressions, put on counterfoils of ballot papers. This discovery, by no means, proved illegitimate stuffing of the ballot boxes to ensure victory of some candidates. Chairman NADRA had repeatedly admitted that the verifying system of his office could only recognize those thumb impressions that were taken by the use of a specific magnetic ink. Apparently, the Election Commission miserably failed to provide the prescribed ink to each polling station all across the country on May 11.

Repeatedly highlighting this admission by NADRA, the interior minister has consistently been pressing his colleagues in the national assembly to find some other means to seriously examine the electoral and balloting processes that furnished the results of May 11 polls. His was a very solid offer that the PTI failed to grab effectively.

Imran Khan rather approached the Supreme Court to seek execution of his demand for the forensic analysis of four national assembly constituencies of his choice. The apex court had already admitted the petition and the Election Commission asked to present its position on the issue within a specific period.

Instead of calmly waiting for completion of the judicial process, the PTI rather announced the intent of staging a picket in Lahore on Dec 22. That pushed the panic button for the ruling PML-N, which for legitimate reasons began apprehending that Imran Khan now wanted to activate streets in its ‘citadel,’ i.e., Lahore. Ostensibly collecting crowds in the name of protesting against inflation, Imran Khan did appear as if trying to gauge his strength for igniting a mass movement. If started from a formidable showing of charged activists on Dec 22, the proposed movement could easily switch its fury to demand fresh elections, also if forensic analysis of the electoral process in four national assembly constituencies affirmed what the PTI had been claiming regarding the electoral process of May 11.

Pakistan Peoples Party had accepted the election results of May 11 with a large heart. Syed Khurshid Shah was thus not justified in owning up the PTI’s case in this context by unnecessarily taking on the ‘inconsistent behavior’ of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. The points he attempted to score through his exhaustive speech surely required a firm rebuttal. The interior minister simply tried doing the same and in the heat of argument referred to a ‘particular party’, read the PTI, “which had been staging a nonstop TAMASHA (spectacle)” while pressing for its demand of the forensic analysis of balloting in four constituencies of its choice. The opposition leader simply behaved like an edgy teenager by strongly reacting to the use of “TAMASHA.” Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was linguistically correct in repeatedly asserting that the word was not insulting or un-parliamentary. Since Khurshid Shah refused to forgive, Nisar then cunningly tried to soften his stance by saying that the PTI legislators were not staging any “TAMASHA” during the assembly proceedings. They prefer doing the same on roads and streets.

The opposition leader was still not satisfied. He rather insisted that the interior minister had tried to project “all opposition members as entertaining puppets” and kept pressing for a categorical apology from Nisar for saying this to “honorable members of an elected house.” The arrogant Rajput from Chakri was just not willing to tender apology.

On laughably trivial grounds, Syed Khurshid Shah and the rest of opposition members surely reached an avoidable showdown. Its sole objective is to push the interior minister to a tight corner. The whole exercise simply wants to prick the inflated ego of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and it does not appear seriously interested to get satisfactory answers to substantive questions regarding the electoral process of May 11, 2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2013.