Mushahid always stood by Nawaz during hard times

ISLAMABAD: When Mushahid Hussain made his debut in politics in 1993 by joining the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Nawaz Sharif had been ousted by the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, using his discretionary powers to dismiss the prime minister and the National Assembly.

At the time, the deposed premier had emerged as the real opposition leader, a transformation that apparently attracted Mushahid Hussain to join his team. He campaigned shoulder to shoulder with him for the following general elections that the PML-N lost. For the next three years, he worked with him in the opposition as an effective spokesman for the PML-N.

When he returned to the PML-N after a decade and a half on Sunday, making a somewhat delayed homecoming, Nawaz Sharif had been thrown out of office by the Supreme Court six months back by declaring the salary from his son’s Dubai-based company as his asset, which he did not disclose in his nomination papers.

Although the PML-N has its governments in place in Punjab and at the federal level, Nawaz Sharif has emerged as the most influential opposition leader, lobbying for the forthcoming parliamentary polls, in which Mushahid Hussain is going to play his part. Both the times he associated himself with the PML-N, the former prime minister was in deep trouble with many quarters relentlessly pitched against him to oust him from politics.

During the tenure of the second Nawaz Sharif government, Mushahid Hussain was a key federal minister, a position that many of his colleagues not only envied but were also jealous of.

Like some other PML-N leaders, Pervez Musharraf’s military regime also incarcerated Mushahid Hussain and released him after 440 days. He was declared a ‘prisoner of conscience’ by the Amnesty International. Even after such unprecedentedly long detention, not a single charge was brought against him. Not even a minor allegation of corruption was ever hurled at him.

He later joined the king’s party – the PML-Q – as was done by some other PML-N leaders, but he never indulged in mud-slinging against the Sharifs. Despite his party ruled everywhere during the dictator’s regime, he preferred not to be part of the federal or provincial cabinet for his own reasons despite solid offers.

Even while parting company with the PML-Q, he wrote a fine letter to its President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain: “This is to notify that I am resigning from the PML-Q. Thank you very much for the personal courtesies shown and opportunities and support provided in the service of Pakistan. I enjoyed working with you and admire your attributes of decency and humanity.”

Mushahid Hussain worked as one of the most effective information ministers during Nawaz Sharif’s second government. He is not a politician, who attaches extraordinary importance to negativity. He mostly showcases the positive side. The PML-N will surely award him ticket for the March 3 Senate election.

Much before affiliating himself with the PML-N, he seemed close to it by sharing its policies and specifically extended full-fledged support to the multibillion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Mushahid Hussain’s mere joining of Nawaz Sharif’s squad at a time when the former prime minister is fighting against the one-sided, ruthless accountability and for the “restoration of justice” clearly demonstrated that he fully backs his aggressive views and considers that the former prime minister has been meted out discriminatory treatment in the whole process that unfolded with the Panama Papers disclosures.