Islamabad
Away from intense uproar over offshore companies, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is more immerse in building his powerbase in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), focused on next general elections.
Inside the National Assembly, the parliamentary democracy was at its best as the forum was used for its real purpose to talk out even issues that appear unresolvable. Thankfully, even those who always run away from the Lower House, calling it names, and prefer to thrust their views outside of it, returned to it and presented their side of the story on their personal and other offshore companies. The utility of the actual place of the MPs transpired to them very late in the day.
To begin with, there was an interesting match between Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and Defence Minister Khawaja M Asif. It was planned beforehand that the minister will take the floor to respond to the PTI chief. He did his job well, buttressing his arguments by his usual bite and cynicism.
Instead of consuming his entire time to pick holes in the offshore firms owned by the prime minister’s children and his business empire, Imran Khan had to belabor a lot, explaining his own ‘benami’ shell that he never declared in his nomination or tax papers although it remained fully operational for 32 years from 1983 to 2015 being the oldest firm held by any Pakistani ever.
Interestingly, the speech of leader of opposition Khursheed Shah on the issue, delivered before the PTI chairman’s address, found not even a slight mention in either Asif’s remarks or the address or intervention of any other treasury member because all of them did not mind it too much. They also did not want to send any wrong message to him and wanted to keep him in good humour.
Fazlur Rehman had not even turned up in the National Assembly when the premier had offered his long-awaited version on a barrage of allegations hurled on him. His conspicuous absence was noted. He chose to arrange an impressive public meeting for Nawaz Sharif in his native Dera Ismail Khan.
Although for the time being, the JUI-F chief is nonchalant to the hubbub over the offshore companies in the National Assembly, he has not missed any opportunity to take on his archrival Imran Khan elsewhere in a severe manner on the same issue, provoking the PTI chief to sharpen his tirade against him.
Fazlur Rehman has found a willing prime minister to lavishly shower funds on the projects, recommended by him, which will lift his electoral prospects in KP. He has treated the crisis over the Panama leaks as a good opportunity to his advantage in his own way. In view of the tricky situation, which, however, has started easing, Nawaz Sharif has been readily available for such activities. In a span of less than two weeks, the JUI-F chief has organized two public rallies for the prime minister to address.
First, he assembled a gathering in Bannu and then in Dera Ismail Khan. He got huge allocations of funds for mega projects in these two districts apart from Lukki Marwat and Tank. A new international airport will be built in Bannu and its credit will be bagged by Fazlur Rehman in the time to come for political dividends. He got hefty funding for some other development projects.
In Dera Ismail Khan, the JUI-F chief got gas supply commitment besides money for a few development schemes. Most important was the groundbreaking of the 285-kilometer long stretch of the Western route of the motorway, starting from Hakla near Islamabad.
It was on Fazlur Rehman’s insistence that the Western route was modified to cover Dera Ismail Khan although almost all technical experts of the government opposed it and said that it has been suddenly announced when they were totally unprepared about it. They also held the opinion that a lot of money would be required for it, but the prime minister told them that since he had made the commitment to the JUI-F chief, he has to fulfill it.
Apart from the political benefits that these projects will bring to Fazlur Rehman, the prime minister also needed immediate support from such a prominent political party at this juncture when the opposition alliance, which has started breaking up, was mounting pressure on him on the question of offshore companies. The JUI-F chief’s activities proved to be equally beneficial for both sides.
Not only Fazlur Rehman but Nawaz Sharif also deeply desires and is working on a strategy to even snatch the KP from the PTI in the next 2018 parliamentary polls. The recent public activities present a sharp contrast between what the government is doing and what the PTI is more concerned with.