ISLAMABAD: An uneasy calm has apparently returned after a pitched verbal battle between leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, marring the relations between the government and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
It is unclear whether or not the backchannel was used to bring about the ostensible truce. By saying that he did not want to respond to the remarks made by Chaudhry Nisar and his cabinet colleague Rana Tanvir against him, the opposition leader waits for a suitable and satisfying response from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to bury the hatchet. However, before the interior minister harshly reacted, Khursheed Shah had denounced him for at least one week for a number of times. At the time, Chaudhry Nisar was not feeling well.
The opposition leader longs for the ouster of the interior minister from the cabinet, but it is a dream that can’t come true, given the kind of position Chaudhry Nisar has in the government and the way he represents its policies concerning his ministry.
If Khursheed Shah and his party colleagues crave for Chaudhry Nisar’s dumping, Senator Aitzaz Ahsan yearns for sidelining of Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, and to achieve this end he has often denounced him in the Upper House of Parliament and outside of it. Though impossible, if, supposing, the prime minister submits to any such demand, there will be no end to this process, and then every minister has to be replaced with a choice nominee of the objectors.
While Khursheed Shah seems willing with a heavy heart to avoid further public drubbing of the interior minister after having received a battering from him and other government figures, some of his PPP colleagues continue to tantalize Chaudhry Nisar on account of his opposition to them specifically on account of the Rangers’ actions in Sindh. They are unlikely to follow him.
While the opposition leader eagerly awaits the public response (that is unlikely to come) of the prime minister by not directly attacking Chaudhry Nisar any more, he will use the floor of the National Assembly to vent out his views. He has repeatedly stated that it was against his status to respond to the interior minister’s assertions and that he would only react to Nawaz Sharif’s remarks. However, this good idea skipped his mind when he was persistently pointing accusing finger at Chaudhry Nisar.
The Interior Ministry’s clarification about the remarks of Chaudhry Nisar made his hard-hitting news conference regarding Khursheed Shah was meant for damage control. It recalled his utterances against the opposition leader that, it implied, were not aimed at the PPP as a whole. It was thus intended to make a difference between Khursheed Shah and his party meaning what he stated was about the opposition leader and not the PPP. The necessity for this arose to dispel the presence of ‘muk muka’ (deal) between the government and the PPP that their opponents had been claiming.
Severe confrontation prevails between Chaudhry Nisar and the PPP over the past seven years. There is no likelihood of its being permanently sorted out. However, the minister may be advised by his boss to be temperate and moderate in order to avoid unnecessary rows. But Chaudhry Nisar is left with no choice but to react when he is disparaged time and again.
As the leader of the opposition during the PPP government, Chaudhry Nisar used to lethally attack the regime particularly the then President Asif Ali Zardari. The PPP may have forgotten that, but what it is not forgetting is that since the present government came in place, he, as the interior minister, has always spoken in a harsh tone against it, whenever he has been harangued or the actions taken by the Sindh Rangers have been publicly disputed by the Sindh government and PPP leaders.