MUZAFFARABAD: A ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker on Friday publicly vented anger at Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi “for not appointing him as a minister to help him overcome poverty”.

Elected for the first time from LA-43, a constituency of Pakistan-based refugees from occupied Kashmir Valley, Javed Butt unleashed a torrent of angry comments in his speech at a function held to mark the 34thdeath anniversary of K.H. Khurshid, a former AJK president and founder of Jammu Kashmir Liberation League (JKLL).

The function was held under the aegis of JKLL and AJK government’s Kashmir Liberation Cell, with former AJK premier Raja Farooq Haider, cabinet members Khawaja Farooq Ahmed and Chaudhry Mohammad Rasheed, JKLL president Manzoor Qadir, JKLF leader Touqeer Gillani, JIAJK leader Shaikh Aqeelur Rehman and several others among the speakers.

They all paid rich tributes to the visionary Kashmiri leader, who had also served as private secretary to Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah during the Pakistan movement, for his invaluable services to the cause of Kashmir, development of the AJK territory, supremacy of the Constitution and strengthening of parliamentary democracy.

However, Mr Butt took everyone by surprise with his unusual speech. “I am not afraid of anybody. I still ask my prime minister [Niazi] that you should act and think sensibly [because] you are unable to run this government,” he said.

Mr Butt who had got the PTI ticket on the recommendation of Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, added in the same breath: “I will also ask my leader Sheikh Rashid sahib to ask our leader Imran Khan that people are too much fed up with Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi. For God’s sake please rid us of him.”

He said he had been visiting Mr Niazi over the past three months in connection with an issue.

“I tried to convince him on the correctness of my stance but in vain because he held an otherwise opinion. After the lapse of three months, he agreed to my standpoint,” he said.

He said he could not help but ask Mr Niazi as to what kind of prime minister he was that he could not take care of him [Butt] despite his adjurations over the past three months.

Interestingly, in the following remarks, the novice lawmaker naively spilled the beans about his anger.

He said after he became the MLA, he asked the prime minister to take care of him by inducting him in the cabinet because “he was impecunious and could hardly make his ends meet”.

However, he fumed that the prime minister did not entertain his request. “It went in from one ear and came out from the other,” he said, using a famous adage in Urdu.

Addressing Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said Mr Khan should know that like that of Pakistan the poor were not being heeded to in AJK either.

“Where should these impoverished people go?”

“If at all I have been elected as a lawmaker, they should take care of this poor person,” he said.

Early in the morning, Fateha khawani was held at Mr Khurshid’s mausoleum.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2022