PARLIAMENT GALLERY
ISLAMABAD - For the third straight-day running, the PPP-led Senate opposition looked impatiently from their mock Senate tent towards the premier to intervene for the required face saving to enable their safe return to the cozy Senate hall. No matter how serious they posed or what arguments they came up with to declare the mock Senate tent as a real one, privately the more brainy opposition Senators feared the show was running out of steam. It came with a big banner, but ended like an unpopular art film released in a commercial cinema.
Their villain, the Chaudhry of Chakri was not ready to budge. No regrets, no apology was the message from the directly-elected member-minister to their indirectly-elected Senate colleagues even when the soft-talking Senator-Minister Pervaiz Rashid was there with a ‘message’. And he could be spotted roaming around Nisar in the National Assembly since Monday, even on the Lower House backbenches. The Rajput of Chakri could afford it, but no one should take the information minister lightly, especially these days. He is one of the linchpins in the Sharif dispensation, a rare breed of confidants, who enjoys proximity of the Sharif brothers. An important member of the Sharif inner circle, no one should compare him with information ministers of the Musharraf-Jamali-Shaukat Aziz eras, or even the last PPP regime. On his part, the premier naturally wanted to get rid of the unnecessary fuss on the very first day. Safe estimates had it that Senator Aitzaz Ahsan-Raza Rabbani duo was not in a position to carry out a lead role for long. The duo, however, tried their best to punch above their weight, but was not brainy enough to come up with “breaking news” stuff, and then grip the news channel (small screen) audiences for long. Gone are the days when readers could only get independent news through papers and that too after hours’ long delay. Now the information travels in seconds and minutes, uninterrupted. Last decade of news channel boom in the country at times allowed more air time to even the second third-tier leadership of the political parties, but also bound them to come up with interesting, juicy political terms, rhetoric, and catchy phrases.
Many got exposed after repeated, boring performances. So in the mock Senate proceedings too, the script had to be mended to give a happy ending to the show as the climax neared. It was houseful for the first day, full of headlines and television tickers. They also made it to the newspaper front pages, convincingly. Second day was monotonous, though Shahi Syed and the rest tried their bit to add interest through street wisdom.
The third day would have been disastrous, already the show was faltering, but the King’s men finally arrived to save the grace. No one would utter, but even the hardest of the interior minister critics and bashers knew the whole episode has been over stretched, and had lost grace.
Anyhow, Ishaq Dar, the linchpin of Sharif inner circle, teamed up with information minister’s Amn ki Asha, was a timely, welcome intervention. Dar spelled out loud and clear he was there on the directives of the premier, but even before his uttering or divulging such information every opposition senator knew what in the offing was. It was a long-awaited relief to save most of the elderly senators from hardships of cold, rain and heavy overcast windy conditions as the mercury kept on dropping in the capital. So eager was this agitation camp to pack up and make it to their safe abodes in the Parliament building that it took them only a few minutes to call off the proceedings as soon as the government ministers went back with a “mission accomplished” message for the premier.
Aitzaz looked overjoyed in the company of the powerful ministers as he gestured sheepishly. Raza Rabbani standing nearby knew the show was over. As if it was part of the deal, Senator Saeed Ghani of the PPP pointed out the quorum in the “actual” Senate Hall as soon as Chairman Nayyer Bukhari started taking up regular business of the House. Enough of it was the message. The honourable senators were bored and tired with the agitation mode hassle, and had to leave for the necessary recess, important works, leaving pen pushers, newspaper readers and television viewers behind some important questions in mind. Who will decide legal status of the three-day mock Senate proceedings? Will there be an explanation from the government or Senate Secretariat about the allowances and other financial benefits the agitating senators will receive? Interestingly, neither the chairman nor the deputy chairman came to the mock Senate tent during three days of its proceedings. They did not preside over the regular Upper House during this time.
Senators enjoy a big advantage these days. Senators, Ishaq Dar and Pervaiz Rashid, everyone knows, are termed eyes and ears of the premier. And went into save grace of their opposition friends, and vice versa. A loner he may seem, Chaudhry Nisar wields his own political weight in the Potohar region as well as in the ruling party. His biggest political challenger, Javed Hashmi, is in the PTI camp. As Opposition Leader in Lower House (2008-13) the man was known as the mini chief minister of Potohar region as he enjoyed years-long proximity and friendship with younger Sharif. Let us be fair to this Rajput from Chakri.
Unorthodox, sometimes uncompromising, egoist Nisar may be labeled by his opponents, even some of his party colleagues would like to go farther to blame him; naturally privately. But the man kept on returning to the Lower House uninterrupted since 1985, a record no one shares in the present parliament. He was neither made chief minister in the post-May 11 scenario nor a foreign minister. He never agreed to become Speaker of Lower House. Interior was an important ministry he agreed to hold, finally. But now this minister of state landed in his ministry building silently and without much notice. One wonders, Balighur Rehman lands to facilitate or check on Nisar. The timing, is however, meaningful. Conspiracy theories apart, if this not a vailed warning shot for the Interior minister, such inductions may be in the offing in the information, defence ministries too. Has the premier launched re-evaluation of his team members? One wonders whether more delays in filling the two top military posts (now put off till November 28, the day Gen Kayani retires) carries the same logic. If this is the case, then things are not on the same page with the military establishment, even though able ministers of the current democratic dispensation churn out this mantra, day in and day out.