ISLAMABAD, May 4: The Pakistan Muslim League leadership appears to be divided over the removal of federal Minister for Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar from the post of the head of the party’s women’s wing following publication of photographs relating to her participation in a parachuting event in Spain. Religious leaders dubbed the photographs objectionable and people opposed to her in the party hierarchy used as a pretext to dump her.
It is learnt that people who engineered her ouster had supplied the photographs to some newspapers. She was asked by party president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to resign and she was replaced by the Minister for Women Development, Sumaira Malik.
Sections supporting Ms Bakhtiar are feeling frustrated because in their view it is an indirect attack on President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s concept of enlightened moderation. The group against Ms Bakhtiar insists that the decision was taken after comprehensive consultations in the party. However, others say that a majority in the women wing’s leadership is against her removal.
A source claimed that the party’s secretary-general, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, had opposed Ms Bakhtiar’s removal, saying that the timing of the move would have an adverse effect on the party.
Another source claimed that Chaudhry Shujaat had succumbed to pressures from some `hidden forces’ and asked Ms Bakhtiar to resign. Some people in the party are of the view that it was sort of a coup by ‘lateral entrants’ in the party who have been working for a long time to prop up Sumaira Malik who belongs to the disbanded Millat Party of Sardar Farooq Leghari.
An insider said that a meeting of the party’s women’s wing convened by Chaudhry Shujaat at his residence on Tuesday had failed to reach a unanimous decision and most of the leaders and workers attending the meeting supported Ms Bakhtiar.
But, Mrs Yaqoot Jamilur Rahman, a vice-president of the PML, denied that there was any difference of opinion and said that the meeting had unanimously empowered Chaudhry Shujaat to take a decision on the matter in the interest of the party.
She justified the removal of Ms Bakhtiar, saying that she had behaved in an ‘irresponsible manner’ at the parachuting event and harmed the party’s image.
She claimed that Chaudhry Shujaat had been embarrassed by the photographs and had ‘independently decided’ to replace Ms Bakhtiar with Ms Malik because of her contributions to women’s cause. A source requesting anonymity said efforts to remove Ms Bakhtiar had been going on for about three months and providing the photographs to the media was part of the campaign.
Iqbal Dar, additional secretary-general of the party, said that Chaudhry Shujaat had to take the decision after going through complaints from the party cadre who considered her actions ‘unbecoming’ of the head of PML’s women’s wing. He, however, admitted that a ‘sizable’ section of women’s wing leaders were against the decision.
