Islamabad, Pakistan: After the peaceful and transparent parliamentary transition that started by holding General Elections on February 8, 2024, the process of government formation in all the provinces and the Centre has been completed.
The maturity shown by political parties to form a multiparty government after a split mandate expressed that sanity prevails in the political arena of Pakistan and a multiparty government in Centre will show a positive attitude because of the problems being faced by the country. Nonetheless, the chaos and indecency that have been seen in the meetings held so far in the four provinces and the National Assembly and the producer of the unrest and chaos is none other than Pakistan Tehrik Insaaf (PTI) has been opting for the path of anarchist behavior since the year 2014. It seems that the self-interested politicians of PTI, instead of correcting the mistakes of the past, only want to achieve their political goals at the cost of peaceful political sailing and they are least bothered about what problems Pakistan is facing today. The kind of negative attitude that PTI has kept during the elections to the formation of governments in the provinces and the in the Center (National Assembly/Federal Government) indicates that PTI would continue its policies of destabilizing the country.
Moreover, a treatment received by a female legislator of PMLN in the KPK Assembly also indicates that PTI has also ruined the moral values of the legislative history of the KPK Assembly where female colleagues in the past had always been considered as an honor of the province.
There is a hope that the new government will solve the security, economic, internal, and external problems being faced by economically-starved Pakistan but the situation seen on the occasions of the election of the Leader of the House, Speaker and Deputy Speaker in the National Assembly and the four provinces speaks otherwise. The people are surprised that PTI except Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where it has formed the government declared the mandate of all National Assembly and provincial assemblies as fake, but still contested elections for Leader of the House, Speaker, and Deputy Speaker in the National Assembly and in provincial assemblies too. PTI lost elections within the assemblies except in KPK because it had fewer numbers than the desired number of votes to form governments in the Centre as well as in the Punjab Assembly. After losing elections within the assemblies, PTI has started spewing poison on the floors of the houses and its members have started harassing the national security institutions while making the worst accusations against them.
Yesterday, seasoned parliamentary reporters sitting in the National Assembly Cafeteria were discussing the conduct of PTI and the majority of them thought that PTI should pay serious attention to the problems of the people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where their government has been for the last 10 years, prepare to deal with the economic, internal and external challenges facing the province instead of consuming its energies again in politics of protests and anarchy while in National Assembly PTI should play its best role as a string opposition and highlight the problems that can be solved to bring relief to the people.
“Billions of rupees are spent on the meeting of the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies and it is the people’s money. Parliamentarians should waste their time and energies just listening to the ramblings, and noises and doing nonsense acts”, commented a senior journalist during this fruitful discussion in the Assembly Cafeteria.
Another Parliamentary reporter was of the view that after being elected as the Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif gave proof of traditional tact and tolerance and talked about taking everyone along while his competitor Umar Ayub, who lost the election of the Prime Minister, spoke the same language as of Imran Khan and raised noise about alleged rigging (although PTI got landslide victory in KPK province), demanded the release of Imran Khan and urged to provide facilities to the wife of Imran Khan in prison.
It seems that the agenda of PTI is not public at all but its politics revolves around chaos, conflict, and attacks on national security institutions, neither they (PTI’s legislators) nor their party founder Imran Khan have had respect for public issues and the kind of vile language used by Sher Afzal Marwat in the National Assembly does not beautify any member of the National Assembly.
Journalists sitting in the National Assembly Cafeteria were also discussing. They tried to figure out why PTI elected Amin Gandapur as the Chief Minister of KPK who is accused (and in some cases as co-accused) in several cases of criminal nature including in May 9, 2022 incidents. “Ali Amin Gandapur as the Chief Minister is driven by the thinking of the founding political party who always preferred the politics of confrontation rather than reconciliation, which led to the tragic incident of May 9. Trying to please their founder by hitting the floor, ” a senior Parliamentary reporter said while participating in the discussion.
Ali Amin Gandapura’s biggest announcement after becoming the Chief Minister is that he will finish the cases against the people involved in the May 9 Mutiny within a week.
On the occasion of the election of the Chief Minister, the way members of this particular political party mocked the female member of the National Assembly of the PMLN is a rare example. Not so vulgar language was ever used by anybody in the past in the KPK Assembly and one Parliamentary reporter from KPK thought that PTI has distorted the face of Pakhtun culture in the last 10 years. It may be mentioned that in the inaugural session of the newly elected Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Assembly, a female legislator of PMLN namely Sobia Shahid, was abused, maltreated, and humiliated by the male assembly members from PTI. Not only that, the lady harassed or hurled with abuses, but she was asked repeatedly to sleep with those male members charging them money from 20-30-50 lakhs to one crore rupees per night. Such a lowlife character meted out to a respectable women legislator by male members from Treasury benches in the KPK Assembly is unheard of, in the history of the KPK Assembly.
Unfortunately to mention that no KPK Assembly member raised his/ her voice against this foul-mouthing and dirty display of character against Sobia Shahid in the KPK Assembly. It seems that representatives of PTI under the leadership of Ali Amin Gandapur have died a collective death of morals and it also shows what the cost a society pays when the cult followers elect disrespectful and characterless people. Slogans like, “Bring this woman to me for one night, I will give 20 lakh rupees”, were chanted by Naseem Iqbal Tarkai a PTI MPA, while sitting in front of the lady MPA.
The performance of PTI’s legislators during the first week of newly formed assemblies surely indicates that the party has learned nothing from mistakes of the past and would continue its immoral and anti-parliamentary conduct in times to come and KPK Assembly has come to a dangerous place for female opposition members to survive with grace and honor. In the parliamentary history of Pakistan, nobody ever used such filthy language that was used in the KPK Assembly recently against a female legislator of PMLN and this is a great lesson for the population of KPK province for voting PTI in power.
Moreover, during the first working day of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Chief Minister Gandapur started distributing the money to members, and over 159 billion rupees were approved for the current month’s expenses in the treasury.
The opposition members claim that the real purpose of this approved budget is to fill the pockets of PTI’s legislators while there is nothing in it for the common man. The important thing here is that two previous governments of PTI had also taken a loan of about 1000 billion during the 9-year for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, which will be paid by stripping the skin of the poor people of KPK. On the other hand, elected governments in Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan have come forward to serve their people, while the two-thirds majority PTI has collected Rs 159.50 crore from the caretaker government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in one year. After the announcement of the disbursement of the monkey split, the meeting of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was adjourned for an indefinite period so that they could burp on this money.
