Heckling mars Imran’s return to parliament

Published April 7, 2015
MNA Dr Farooq Sattar of the MQM talks to reporters outside the Parliament House.—Online
MNA Dr Farooq Sattar of the MQM talks to reporters outside the Parliament House.—Online

ISLAMABAD: It was a day for statesmanship, but parliamentarians could not rise above politics.

A joint sitting of parliament had been convened to discuss Yemen, but most of the day was spent settling score with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), whose members had returned to the assembly after a seven-month absence.

The return too could have been a moment to celebrate – if Yemen had to be sidetracked – as the triumph of democracy and parliament. But instead, the day was spent attacking Imran Khan-led PTI.

Barring the PPP, whose Khursheed Shah and Aitzaz Ahsan displayed the only statesmanship evident in a long session, the rest of the political parties — both in opposition and on the treasury benches — closed ranks to target the PTI.

From the PML-N to the MQM to the JUI-F, no one missed a chance to take a potshot at Mr Khan and his party.

The first salvo was fired by PML-N backbenchers, who started chanting slogans against the PTI, accompanied by raucous desk thumping when members of the party walked into the National Assembly. The speaker found it difficult to control the young Turks from the ruling party who had stood up and were clamouring to lash out.

Though Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah tried to lower temperatures by welcoming the PTI back to the house, the rest were in no mood to forgive and forget.

And this was clearly expressed once business resumed later in the day.

The MQM got its turn first and veteran leader Farooq Sattar accused the speaker of ignoring the Constitution while allowing the PTI back into the parliamentary fold in his heated speech. The party then staged a walkout in protest.


PML-N, MQM, JUI-F settle score with PTI; insiders say comments outside the house provoked bitter response


This also allowed a chance to Defence Minister Khawaja Asif to take a potshot at those who had held a sit-in outside parliament for months and poured criticism on PML-N.

As the commotion continued, in short but harshly-worded comments, he thundered that the PTI should have shown ‘sharam’ (shame) and ‘haya’ (modesty).

“Issi house ko gali daitay ho aur phir ider aa kar baithtay ho (You curse this house and then come and sit in the same place),” he added.

“After abusing us for such a long time you have now returned to the house, but you refuse to learn. You are still calling this a house that resulted from rigged elections. For God’s sake, have mercy on us,” a visibly, charged Asif shouted as others heckled.

It appeared that he and others were worked up by the fact that after the morning session, Mr Khan had addressed the media outside the Parliament House and reiterated that he believed that this parliament was constituted through rigged elections.

In response to questions about his apparent U-Turn, Mr Khan had asserted that “unless the judicial commission investigates the rigging of the last general elections, I still consider this assembly a fake one”.

His unfortunate choice of words gave all his detractors inside parliament a chance to lash out.

Undoubtedly, many parliamentarians felt that they couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attack Mr Khan and others who had harangued politicians during their long sit-in.

But the PTI seemed to be prepared for this onslaught for no member reacted to the scorn poured on them.

Throughout the long joint session, the PTI leadership and its young brigade of lawmakers didn’t flinch, not even at the defence minister’s tirade.

Was the heckling planned?

Was Khawaja Asif’s outburst part of a plan that also included the backbenchers?

A well-connected office-bearer of the ruling party explained that Mr Khan’s comments before the press during the session break provoked PML-N, which decided to “pay back in the same coin”.

He claimed that though there was always a plan to mock and taunt the PTI, “a full-fledged counter attack was only approved after Mr Khan’s media talk”.

Perhaps this is why the PML-N leadership could not stop the heckling by the backbenchers, despite the speaker’s orders, and the prime minister certainly did not stop Mr Asif.

It is important to note that the PM can assert such control when he wants. For instance, during the joint session convened at the height of the protests outside parliament, Nawaz Sharif did not allow Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan to respond to the PPP when he and Aitzaz Ahsan were at loggerheads and the latter made a hard-hitting speech in the house that targeted Nisar Ali Khan.

In fact, later, when some television channels reported that the PM had berated Mr Asif for his outburst, the government issued a clarification, stating that the “PM didn’t talk about the matter” adding that the media was “requested to refrain from speculation in this regard”.

That the PTI was aware of this was clear from Mr Khan’s own comments who asked, “How can the defence minister utter these words in the presence of the PM without his endorsement”.

PTI General Secretary Jahangir Tareen, however, went as far as to term the episode “a conspiracy in which Mr Asif was the chief protagonist”.

In other words, PML-N appeared to be a bystander in the entire spectacle on Monday and it was left to Aitzaz Ahsan to once again remind the parliamentarians of their responsibility.

Terming Mr Asif’s remarks “self-destructive”, Mr Ahsan reminded PML-N of the need to soften their tone and to show the generosity and graciousness that behooves a ruling party.

In his inimitable style, he likened the defence minister’s comments to the elephants of King Porus – who had famously trampled their own army.

But Mr Ahsan could not hold back the onslaught. He was followed by Fazlur Rehman of the JUIF, who also launched a blistering attack on the PTI.

Like the MQM earlier, he too argued that, “With PTI leaders sitting in parliament, this sitting has lost its moral and legal authority,” and led his party members out of the house.

A second PML-N official told Dawn that the JUI-F, ANP and MQM had their own axes to grind with the PTI and their own interests were behind their attacks on Mr Khan and his party.

However, there is no doubt that the entire episode, however embarrassing it may have proved for the PTI, damaged PML-N the most. In most talk shows on Monday night, the ruling party came under fire for attacking a party it had spent the past seven months wooing.

“The PML-N is its own worst enemy,” commented one such observer.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2015

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