Even the hardened cynics have to admit that Ms Sherry Rehman and Mian Raza Rabbani of Pakistan Peoples’ Party laboriously work to furnish sanity and grace to proceedings of the Senate. Thanks to their diligence, the deeply polarised Upper House of our Parliament often surprised observers by developing consensus for addressing some highly sensitive and explosive issues.
Hawks crowding the opposition parties don’t approve their conduct. During off-the-record conversations, many of them bitterly laugh at “the sagacity,” both of them presumably want to “display, come what may.”
Yet, both these senators seemed to “have had enough” Wednesday morning. And they felt forced to deliver furious and passionate speeches to defend the legacy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter, Ms Benazir Bhutto.
To fathom the cause of their fury, you have to keep in mind that the residents of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) will elect representatives for the assembly there on July 25, 2021. Traditionally, the political party relishing command and control in Islamabad always succeeded in forming the government in Azad Kashmir as well. But Pakistan Peoples’ Party and Pakistan Muslim League are working hard these days to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the youthful PPP Chairman, had gone to AJK for addressing a series of crowded rallies. To charge his party base, he also used equally harsh language to deride the PML-N leaders, besides projecting Imran Khan for being ‘soft’ on India. The PML-N had launched Ms Maryam Nawaz to mobilise voters in the State. Her rage mostly stays focused on the person and politics of Imran Khan. The rallies, she had addressed, also affirmed her charismatic pull and vote-attracting strength.
Imran Khan’s loyalists are not feeling good and comfortable with visibly charged momentum; both these leaders were able to build in Azad Kashmir by personally leading the election campaign. To push them back, Ali Amin Gandapur and Murad Saeed, two very hawkish and vocal federal ministers, had been sent to Azad Kashmir. Leading the PTI’s election campaign, both of them keep ‘exposing the corrupt genes,’ of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Ms Maryam Nawaz.
Bad mouthing is almost a norm in the heat and dust of viciously waged battles for winning an election. But Ali Amin Gandapur is certainly setting shockingly new trends with his stunningly OTT behavior. He also looked recklessly audacious, in a video that already had gone viral on social media. Therein, he handed a thick wad of currency notes to a local notable. Apparently, this was his “contribution” for building a road, which the local community required desperately. But his behavior smacked of vote-buying arrogance. The Election Commission had already taken note of it.
But Ali Amin is not in the habit of bending or lie low, if the winds were blowing against him. Throwing caution to the wind, he rather addressed a large public meeting the other day. The area, he had gone to, is dotted with huge swaths of diehard PPP supporters. With the clear intent of bullying them, he called Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the PPP founder, “a traitor.” As if that were not enough to state his vicious zeal, he also went on to rubbish the “corrupt legacy” of Ms Benazir Bhutto and her husband. He also attempted to “entertain” the PTI cadres by mockingly questioning “the gender” of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
Gandapur also employed shockingly sexist nuances to laugh at Ms Maryam Nawaz Sharif. After calling her “Dakoo Kee Baitee (the daughter of a dacoit),” he went on mocking her dresses and the manner she carried herself.
No wonder at the outset of the Senate sitting Wednesday, Maula Bux Chandio, a PPP diehard from Sindh, took the floor on a point of order and vigorously attempted to get even with Gandapur. The ruling party senators could easily have prevented the bedlam by smartly pleading that speeches made by a minister outside the House must not spoil things within the Senate. But many of them opted to forcefully defend Gandapur. That made it extremely difficult for Raza Rabbani and Sherry Rehman to keep calm and quiet.
Raza Rabbani had been an established rabble-rouser and stone-throwing activist during his student days. His firm resistance to General Zia’s martial law often led him to jail as well. He surely took long to tame the rebel in him. But on Wednesday the seemingly buried rebel surely resurrected with a bang. He also led enraged slogan chanting to defend the legacy of his party leaders. The friends-to-all skills of Sadiq Sanjrani didn’t seem working for restoring the order.
The ruling party was still not apologetic. They rather persuaded the Senate Chairman to permit speechmaking on the legacy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, from both sides of the house. But they used the extracted opportunity, less to discuss ZAB but for feverishly drumming the point that Imran Khan remained the one and only patriot that Pakistan’s political class could ever produce. He is honest and pious and never abused his charisma, clout and power to amass (ill-gotten) millions.
ZAB’s loyalists were passionate in highlighting a long list of trend-setting initiatives that the PPP founder bravely took to empower the marginalized segments of our society. They felt deeply hurt that the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program was declared a “traitor” by “juvenile characters like Gandapur.”
The tension, triggered due to OTT remarks of Gandapur regarding Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, also showed its impact during the brief sitting of the national assembly. At one point, it even embarrassed the PTI benches, when Raja Riaz, a ruling party backbencher from Faisalabad, took the floor to proudly defend Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Instead of addressing some ominous kind of here and now issues, both the houses of our parliament remained hooked to “correct history” with partisan obsessions.
I am no longer active in field reporting. But the accumulated experience of a retired reporter compels me to imagine that forthcoming polls in Azad Kashmir are set to throw scenarios, not seen in the past.
Gradually, the incumbent prime minister of AJK, Raja Farooq Haider, has surely switched to build momentum for “protecting the State Identity.” His campaign pitch can unleash a set of complicated questions laden with strong potential of turning ‘sentimental.’ One would prefer not to elaborate further. Suffice to say that Modi’s ruthless initiatives in Occupied Kashmir firmly demand that forthcoming elections in our part of Kashmir must be held in completely free, fair and transparent manner.