LAHORE, June 22: MMA legislators washed their dirty linen in the open on Tuesday when its parliamentary leader Asghar Gujjar and disgruntled MPA Fayyaz Chohan clashed on the alliance stance on Kalabagh dam.
It was a scene enjoyed by legislators on both treasury and opposition benches. Expressing his views on the budget, Mr Gujjar was dilating upon future irrigation needs of the province. He criticized the rulers for backing out of the Kalabagh Dam project for fear of their ouster from power.
He said: "Gen Musharraf announced his intention to undertake the project immediately after coming to power but surrendered it under pressure from a few anti-social elements who were against the water reservoir."
Mr Chohan who had joined treasury benches after balloting for Gen Musharraf in the confidence vote earlier this year, wasted no time to defend his new leader. On a point of order, he said for the last 22 years he had been active in politics from the platform of the Jamaat-i-Islami which had been criticizing the PPP and PML-N governments and the ANP for objecting to construction of the dam.
Amid clapping by all parties except, of course, the MMA, he said after the general election in 2002, when Gen Musharraf announced construction of the dam, the MMA was in the forefront opposing it.
Arshad Baggu, another MMA member, clarified that Mr Chohan had no link with the religious alliance as he had been expelled from it after he became a turncoat. Chohan said if he was a lota then the MMA was a dustbin which had bagged votes by capitalizing on anti-Musharraf sentiments but later elected the same person as constitutional head of the country through the 17th amendment.
Denying that the NWFP MMA had opposed the dam, Gujjar said it had only stressed the need for developing a national consensus before undertaking the project. He said he was ready to go to the NWFP on behalf of the Punjab government to convince their colleagues there on the issue.
United PML's Khizar Hayat Virk suggested that a committee of MMA legislators should be formed to make the NWFP Assembly pass a resolution for the Kalabagh. Mr Baggu said the ruling party should first ask its lawmakers in the NWFP to back this move.
PPP's Rana Aftab suggested that as discussed in the chamber the speaker should convene a conference of experts from all over the provinces to remove reservations of all stakeholders.
Speaker Afzal Sahi said it was a federal subject and the federal government was working on it.Food minister Chaudhry Iqbal also insisted that if MMA highups supported the idea and the NWFP Assembly passed a resolution in favour of the dam there would remain no obstacle in its construction.
Mr Gujjar alleged that Chaudhry Iqbal had malicious intentions while tabling the suggestion. If he meant any good, the PML and the PPP elders should accompany him to the NWFP for preparing ground there for the dam, he added.
The food minister said it was crystal clear whose intention was bad. He proposed that the MMA should draft a resolution (for the dam) to be passed by the Punjab as well as the NWFP Assembly.
Mr Gujjar agreed to visit the NWFP and Sindh for removing their reservations on the Kalabagh Dam if the government extended cooperation to them. He criticized Chohan for joining the ruling party after winning on the ticket and support of the MMA.
Chohan challenged him and claimed that he had won with the support of his friends in the PPP and the PML-N and his relatives. If the MMA had a votebank in his constituency (PP-14, Rawalpindi), he said, its nominee for National Assembly Afzal Aizaz would not have lost by bagging just 4,000 votes against over 14,000 of his.
Even in Lahore, he said, MMA candidates would not have clinched more than 4,000 votes had the PML-N not withdrawn its nominees. He blamed the MMA for causing financial losses to the country by creating ambiguities over the LFO issue for around a year and later compromising on it.
On Dec 18 when the alliance was to launch a movement from Multan, Liaqat Baloch and Hafiz Husain Ahmad flew to the presidency on an official helicopter to sign the deal making the LFO part of the constitution, he said, attracting more clapping from both the treasury and the opposition benches.
Regretting the clapping for Chohan, Gujjar said the government was impatient to lure every single voter in the house. PPP's Lala Shakeel said all the PPP, PML-N and MMA members who had shifted to treasury benches should resign to clear their conscience.
