Sana’s return to cabinet shows Sharifs trust in him

ISLAMABAD: The return of Rana Sanaullah to the Punjab cabinet after his exoneration by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) from the Model Town, Lahore, tragedy shows complete confidence of the Sharif brothers in him.
Everyone would readily agree that Sanaullah is a fighter who can’t be bullied by his rivals even when he is confronted with a highly disconcerting situation like that of the Model Town episode.
His reinstatement in the same portfolio, with same powers may trigger a protest from the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), which, however, is yet to come out of the massive incapacitation, damage and exhaustion caused by its last year’s protracted protest.
After PAT, unceremoniously, wrapped its sit-in without achieving any of its high sounding goals and just faced immense embarrassment, it has been on the fringes, having no worthwhile activity to take pride. Allama Dr Tahirul Qadri’s quick departure abroad apparently for health reasons in the wake of the end of his protest unprecedented pushed his party into inaction and made it a nonentity.
Along with Sanaullah, Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha was also sworn in as the finance minister with a view to present the forthcoming provincial budget in the Punjab assembly. She is an expert in this field. Almost every year, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif inducts a finance minister on the eve of the budget so that the new man can read out the budget speech in the legislature.
When Sanaullah was previously minister or was out of the cabinet for the past one year, he always represented the Punjab government on every forum whenever it was in a difficult situation. At no stage, did his stand and views, expressed at various places, give the impression that he was no longer minister.
Since it is obviously not possible for the chief minister to handle every kind of crisis or law and order issue, Sanaullah has been available to speak for the provincial government as well as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). He proved himself to be a great party loyalist and Shahbaz Sharif trusts him more than anybody else in his cabinet or the PML-N.
Sanaullah was asked to resign three days after the June 17, 2014, Model Town killings and he immediately stepped down saying that he wanted to get himself cleared from the charge. A few days ago, the JIT issued a clean chit to him although the case is yet to be decided by a court of law.
Because of his unequivocal support to and staunch association with the PML-N, Sanaullah was once brutally physically tortured by what he had said the personnel of an intelligence agency. But this failed to dent his resolve to stick to his affiliation with the PML-N. He has continued to do the tough job for the Sharif brothers. He has never changed his party after he joined the PML-N, leaving the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) over two decades ago.
Dr Ayesha has 23 year experience in teaching, undertaking research and consulting assignments in social policy and development, governance, public finance and urban and regional economics and in advocacy work on social and economic issues.
She has a PhD from the University of Leeds, Britain. She has served as deputy/acting managing director of the Social Policy and Development Centre, Karachi, a non-governmental think tank. She has been a member of several task forces, committees and commissions on public finance, social sectors, poverty alleviation and institutional reforms constituted by the governments.
Dr Ayesha has represented NGOs on the management boards of a number of important organisations like the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund. She has undertaken consulting assignments for different international multilateral and bilateral agencies, like UNICEF, UNDP, The World Bank, The Asian Development Bank, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). She has published over 75 books, journal articles and reports. She is the PML-N member of the Punjab Assembly on special woman’s seat.