ISLAMABAD, Oct 6: All eyes are on Balochistan now. After the former chief minister and Baloch nationalist leader Sardar Akhtar Mengal upped the ante in Balochistan’s politics by presenting his six-point charter before the Supreme Court, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N has demanded formation of an all-parties commission on the province.
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, has said the PML-N has decided to bring a resolution during the current session of the house, calling for the setting up of a commission which has representation of all political forces of the country.
“Political parties sitting inside and outside the parliament should be included in the commission along with the estranged Baloch leadership for finding a sustainable political solution to the problem being faced by the province,” said Chaudhry Nisar while talking to journalists in his chamber in the National Assembly on Friday. He said the proposed commission should be given one month to make its recommendations.
The most important challenge for the main stream political parties was to bring the Baloch nationalist leadership to the negotiating table because everything else could be discussed once they were willing to talk, he said.
The PML-N has supported Mr Mengal’s charter and it believes that if implemented in letter and spirit it can help improve the situation in the province. Mr Mengal in his six points has said that all covert and overt military operations against Baloch people should end immediately, all missing persons should be produced before a court of law, death squads operating in a manner like Al Shams and Al Badar operated in the then East Pakistan allegedly under the supervision of ISI and MI should be disbanded, Baloch political parties should be allowed to function without interference from intelligence agencies; persons responsible for torture, killing and dumping of bodies of Baloch political leaders and activists should be brought to justice, and measures should be initiated for rehabilitation of thousands of displaced Baloch families.
Eyeing a window of opportunity in the province where the PML-N at the moment has only one member of the National Assembly, its leadership extended its unconditional support to Baloch nationalist parties if they are willing to contest next general elections.
In 2008, Baloch nationalists had boycotted the polls.
Chaudhry Nisar said the proposed resolution would also include recommendations for fixing of petroleum prices on the monthly basis because the weekly change in prices was causing problems for the general public. The PML-N, he said, would also ask the government to take measures against the dissemination of blasphemous material in the country.
Supporting former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s assertion that present parliament had become a rubber stamp as decisions were taken ‘somewhere else’, Chaudhry Nisar said: “I have been saying the same thing for the past four years.”
Although Mr Gilani didn’t say in so many words that who was taking decisions outside the parliament, the PML-N leader targeted President Asif Ali Zardari for what he said hijacking the parliament. He said Mr Zardari had gone against all state institutions and was only working to serve the interests of his People’s Party or those of a selected lot.
Talking to journalists in Lahore on Thursday, Mr Gilani said that an unannounced Bangladeshi-model government was running the country as decisions were taken somewhere else and parliament had become helpless. He also criticised the opposition for allegedly supporting such kind of a government. “When I was disqualified, parliament did nothing and now it is of no use to shed tears on disqualification of other parliamentarians for holding dual nationality,” said Mr Gilani. He said parliament had failed to exercise its powers. “It should have taken a stand when I was shown the door.”