MQM too close for comfort in Punjab
LAHORE: With the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) getting too close for comfort in Punjab, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is alarmed, sensing the move that was initially meant for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) three years back has been successfully applied against it by the powerful establishment to strike political balance for the anticipated testing times for it in the months to come.
The sources in the PML-N told Daily Times that there is a general feeling within the party that the policy devised by the establishment to ‘marginalise the top leadership of leading parties’ had succeeded in Punjab, a bastion of PML-N, as it has to allow MQM to start politics here. The PPP on the other hand, said the sources, had nothing to lose as far as the emergence of MQM in Punjab’s politics is concerned as it was successfully countering MQM in Sindh, despite keeping a shaky political alliance with it, both at the Centre as well as in Sindh.
A top PML-N leader from Punjab told Daily Times on the condition of anonymity that the party has failed to move an inch forward as far its out-reach to the masses on the basis of the party’s government’s performance is concerned. “The story of the party’s working in the province has nothing but failure all around hence the sojourn of MQM in the plains of Punjab where it has nothing to achieve keeping in view its style of politics in the urban centres of Sindh,” he said.
The party sources said the move of the establishment to bring the MQM in the politics of Punjab had brought the “group of hawks” led by opposition leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on the receiving end within the party.
The sources said the “hawks” had been devising political strategy of the party on the line of taking the PPP as enemy against the establishment while the group of “doves” led by Javed Hashmi and Ishaq Dar had been trying to keep the party policy on the lines drawn well within the ambit of the Charter of Democracy signed by the party with the PPP.
The sources said the “doves” in the PML-N had been viewing the address of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to initiate debate on President Asif Ali Zardari’s address to the joint session of the parliament as licking wounds he himself caused to the party during the three years of hawkish policy against the PPP government.
A senior party leader from Punjab told Daily Times that the mentioning of agencies by the opposition leader in National Assembly as the force behind emergence of MQM in Punjab politics has not served the party well. Instead, he suggested, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan should have traced the causes that has emboldened the establishment to bring MQM in Punjab, which was nothing but adding salt to PML-N injuries that were inflicted to the party by none other but the party hawks.
The senior PML-N leader said, “The time has come for the party to revisit its policies viz-a-viz its working with the ruling PPP and shun politics of confrontation that it has unilaterally started by expelling the PPP ministers out of the Punjab government.”
The PML-N leader, however, appreciated the opposition leader in the National Assembly for extending an olive branch to the PPP on the question of the much talked about government of technocrats as an option being debated in political circles. The PML-N can best serve the masses by foiling the moves of the establishment against democratic system in the country for which it was not hesitating in planting thorns in the land that can produce the best roses, opined the PML-N leader.
The sources in the party believe that the PML-N better stop highlighting the issue of Raymond Davis since the more the party presses the issue, the more criticism it will invite since it has a very poor case to offer as far as its role in the release of CIA operative is concerned.
The sources said the duo of hawks – Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Shahbaz Sharif – are the only voices in the party that have been debating the issue while the rest had decided to stay aloof of the debate that has done nothing except causing embarrassment to the party.
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