Comment
By Our special correspondent
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has boldly proceeded against a huge number of “conscience sellers” of his party in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly but this is not the whole truth.
His decisive move has been widely acclaimed and it indeed deserves to be lauded but he acted selectively. Side by side naming and shaming one-third of his KP lawmakers at this critical time in the run-up to fresh general elections, his initiative would have been going to be more profusely praised without ifs and buts had he shown the same chutzpah in belabouring in the same vein on how a senior PTI leader got himself elected from the Punjab Assembly by managing over a dozen votes of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). It was well known that his party doesn’t have the requisite number for his victory in this legislature.
Some of the lawmakers that Imran Khan mentioned as the vote sellers in last month’s Senate election have either distanced themselves from the PTI or had been loudly estranged with it or have joined other political entities.
Since the action that Imran Khan took was on the cards for quite some time as he was waiting for the report of a party probe committee on the matter, he declared a few days back that the PTI government in KP would not present the new budget, knowing that it would not be able to get it passed for having lost majority in the provincial assembly. In reality, it is now a minority government as it doesn’t enjoy the support of the majority of the members of the KP Assembly. Its coalition partner, the Jamaat-e-Islami, too is unprepared to stand with it.
Before and after announcing that the KP administration would not present the budget, he urged the federal government not to do so and leave it to the next regime.
However, neither federal authorities nor the governments of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan paid any heed to his call.
Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi angered over the fate his party met in the election of the Senate and its chairman declared more than once even before the Senate polls that he and the PML-N would “name and shame” the ‘horse-traders’ and stated that those who were elected on the force of money would have no respect whatsoever. He severely took on such senators as well as the Upper House chairman, Sadiq Sanjrani, suggesting that a new chief should be elected in his place.
However, three major parties benefited from the support of the “conscience sellers” in the Senate polls. The PTI got one additional seat in the Punjab; the PML-N secured one extra seat in KP while the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) bagged two extra seats each in Sindh and KP.
At the same time, the PML-N was deprived of one seat in the Punjab and at least three seats in Balochistan because of the “hijacking” of its entire parliamentary party in this provincial assembly; and the PTI was robbed of at least two seats in KP.
The PML-N did not bother to undertake an investigation to identify its lawmakers, who voted for the PTI nominee. At one point, it stated that it did probe the matter but avoided to divulge the identity of such legislators. After making of of Janoobi Punjab Sooba Muhaz by some parliamentarians there are reports that a number of N-League parliamentarians are bracing for ditching the party.
Imran Khan has repetitively stressed that if the man on the top (he means himself) is honest, all those working with and under him will follow him. However, all the sordid business happened under his very nose in the KP Assembly. This was perhaps the first time that votes were sold in such a major political force that is presenting itself as the next ruling party after the fresh elections. The PTI chief took along all such elements for five years in his mission to build a “new Pakistan” in KP. At the end of his rule in KP, he has shunted out the vote sellers.
He has at least thrice claimed over the past some time that he was offered Rs400 million in the Senate election that he turned down, but refrained from naming the fabulously rich man who picked up the courage to make the offer directly or indirectly.
