PTI man’s counter-offensive with seminar-hardened wits
PML-N backbenchers deliberately trying to lynch political stance of Imran Khan and his party for past 3 days.
While defending the budgetary proposals of their government during ongoing general discussion in the national assembly, the PML-N backbenchers have deliberately been trying to lynch the political stance of Imran Khan and his party for the past three days.
Doing this, Mian Mannan type loudmouth also went to the extent of viciously targeting the person of Asad Umer on Thursday and never felt shy to blast his reputation of a corporate wizard with reckless use of street jargons.
A day before this, Omar Ayub had also caused too much pain to PTI backbenchers by taking on Imran Khan. Parliamentary reporters were thus not wrong to presume that taking his turn Friday, Shafqat Mehmud might mount a counterattack by making an equally offensive speech.
This bureaucrat-turned-politician from Rahim Yar Khan is made of a different material, however. Although too familiar with dirty games that politicians keep playing to ruin each other, he prefers discussing issues with cool but solid arguments. He took full advantage of his seminar-hardened wits to pick on the narrative that the PML-N and its supporters had begun promoting of late.
This said narrative essentially wants the world to believe that “ever conspiring forces” of our so-called establishment are not letting the PML-N government stabilize and address the accumulated problems of Pakistan with cool execution of long-term policies. Through his stunningly blunt speech Thursday, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, a towering ally of the PML-N government, had primarily endorsed the same narrative.
Shafqat Mehmud tried demolishing this narrative with dispassionate recall of Nawaz Sharif’s conduct during his previous two terms. Instead of settling for a long innings after elected to the prime minister’s office in the late 1990, Shafqat believed, Nawaz Sharif rather seemed in haste to annoy the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. In the same period, he also failed to develop deeper working understanding with successive Army Chiefs, first Mirza Aslam Beg and later Asif Nawaz Janjua.
History seemed repeating itself like the farce when immediately after elected for another term in 1993, the prime minister first made the then President, Farooq Khan Leghari to resign; mounted unbearable pressure on Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and finally managed extracting a resignation from General Jehangir Karamat.
While ignoring the legitimate expectant for succeeding Karamat, Nawaz Sharif rather went for a relatively junior Pervez Musharraf. Yet, both developed serious difference due to Kargil and eventually reached a stage where Gen Musharraf felt compelled to save his job and skin by taking over in October 1999.
In Pakistan’s peculiar political context where the praetorian elite had savored long spells of complete control, Shafqat kept suggesting, the elected politicians should rather stay focused on building credibility and relevance of the democratic system with undivided attention on peoples’ economic uplift and provision of good governance.
And talking of the economic management, Shafqat accused the PML-N government of simply relying on ‘trickle down’ illusions that always fail in a country like Pakistan.
He also attempted to question the credibility of the whole process of awarding 3G and 4G licences, apparently through a much-touted transparent process. The PTI legislator claimed that the so-called transparency regarding this auctioning was rather “maneuvered by a cartel of various telecom tycoons through sinister bargaining.”
Ms Anusha Rehman, the diligent IT minister, could not swallow even a subtle hint of an allegation. She forced the chair to let her speak and claimed with a firm voice that not one complaint was ever filed before any relevant forum that questioned the 3G and 4G deals. Shafqat was even unaware of the basic fact that no Monopoly Commission Authority existed in Pakistan, which he claimed had received various complaints regarding the said process but the government did not let the said institution go for deep probing.
One has no hard info to comment on the deal Ms Rehman and Shafqat seemed having two versions about. After talking to some highly reliable sources, however, I can report that the prime minister is yet not willing to forget and forgive when it comes to trying General Musharraf for his acts of Nov 3, 2007. But hardly a person, even from a core group considered too close to him, has any idea about how he plans to go about it.
Before concluding, let me also tell you that the government is also ready with a plan to take on Tahir-ul-Qadri, if he sticks to his idea of landing at Islamabad Airport on June 23 to launch a revolutionary movement. Since I have collected details of this plan with the firm commitment of not revealing them, the professional ethics compel me to hint at serious problems that the MQM leader seems stuck in these days. Something related to MONEY etc!!
Published in The Express Tribune, June 14th, 2014.
Doing this, Mian Mannan type loudmouth also went to the extent of viciously targeting the person of Asad Umer on Thursday and never felt shy to blast his reputation of a corporate wizard with reckless use of street jargons.
A day before this, Omar Ayub had also caused too much pain to PTI backbenchers by taking on Imran Khan. Parliamentary reporters were thus not wrong to presume that taking his turn Friday, Shafqat Mehmud might mount a counterattack by making an equally offensive speech.
This bureaucrat-turned-politician from Rahim Yar Khan is made of a different material, however. Although too familiar with dirty games that politicians keep playing to ruin each other, he prefers discussing issues with cool but solid arguments. He took full advantage of his seminar-hardened wits to pick on the narrative that the PML-N and its supporters had begun promoting of late.
This said narrative essentially wants the world to believe that “ever conspiring forces” of our so-called establishment are not letting the PML-N government stabilize and address the accumulated problems of Pakistan with cool execution of long-term policies. Through his stunningly blunt speech Thursday, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, a towering ally of the PML-N government, had primarily endorsed the same narrative.
Shafqat Mehmud tried demolishing this narrative with dispassionate recall of Nawaz Sharif’s conduct during his previous two terms. Instead of settling for a long innings after elected to the prime minister’s office in the late 1990, Shafqat believed, Nawaz Sharif rather seemed in haste to annoy the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. In the same period, he also failed to develop deeper working understanding with successive Army Chiefs, first Mirza Aslam Beg and later Asif Nawaz Janjua.
History seemed repeating itself like the farce when immediately after elected for another term in 1993, the prime minister first made the then President, Farooq Khan Leghari to resign; mounted unbearable pressure on Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and finally managed extracting a resignation from General Jehangir Karamat.
While ignoring the legitimate expectant for succeeding Karamat, Nawaz Sharif rather went for a relatively junior Pervez Musharraf. Yet, both developed serious difference due to Kargil and eventually reached a stage where Gen Musharraf felt compelled to save his job and skin by taking over in October 1999.
In Pakistan’s peculiar political context where the praetorian elite had savored long spells of complete control, Shafqat kept suggesting, the elected politicians should rather stay focused on building credibility and relevance of the democratic system with undivided attention on peoples’ economic uplift and provision of good governance.
And talking of the economic management, Shafqat accused the PML-N government of simply relying on ‘trickle down’ illusions that always fail in a country like Pakistan.
He also attempted to question the credibility of the whole process of awarding 3G and 4G licences, apparently through a much-touted transparent process. The PTI legislator claimed that the so-called transparency regarding this auctioning was rather “maneuvered by a cartel of various telecom tycoons through sinister bargaining.”
Ms Anusha Rehman, the diligent IT minister, could not swallow even a subtle hint of an allegation. She forced the chair to let her speak and claimed with a firm voice that not one complaint was ever filed before any relevant forum that questioned the 3G and 4G deals. Shafqat was even unaware of the basic fact that no Monopoly Commission Authority existed in Pakistan, which he claimed had received various complaints regarding the said process but the government did not let the said institution go for deep probing.
One has no hard info to comment on the deal Ms Rehman and Shafqat seemed having two versions about. After talking to some highly reliable sources, however, I can report that the prime minister is yet not willing to forget and forgive when it comes to trying General Musharraf for his acts of Nov 3, 2007. But hardly a person, even from a core group considered too close to him, has any idea about how he plans to go about it.
Before concluding, let me also tell you that the government is also ready with a plan to take on Tahir-ul-Qadri, if he sticks to his idea of landing at Islamabad Airport on June 23 to launch a revolutionary movement. Since I have collected details of this plan with the firm commitment of not revealing them, the professional ethics compel me to hint at serious problems that the MQM leader seems stuck in these days. Something related to MONEY etc!!
Published in The Express Tribune, June 14th, 2014.