Opposition tries its best to throw a spanner in the works

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 Not necessarily designed as a “common man” or “welfare model” the 2017-18 PML-N budget is more of a growth oriented “popular budget” crafted with an aim to achieve macro-economic stability and sustainable growth. It offers no major relief, but also there are less new taxes. On the face of it revolves around an economic plan which relies very less on indirect taxes. Opposition of the day would have to work hard to find major pitfalls or lacunas. Lately, the whole effort is also supplemented by finally focusing on agriculture sector more to satisfy the agriculture lobby and community in the elections year. But one low as Dar sahib vowed to enter the country in G-20 by 2030 – less focus on human development, social sector reforms. Even BISP’s intervention for the families below the poverty line is still less than Rs2,000 per month. That means the PML-N Punjab government would have to do wonders in health, education and rest of the social sector to compete on this front with PTI’s KP government. The PPP, not able to compete on any count, will rely only on political rhetoric.

At the moment, apart from MQM’s Farooq bhai coming up with some funny shadow budget, only one or two individuals from the PPP and PTI like Naveed Qamar, Asad Umar have the knowledge and capacity to bisect the whole thing. And come up with some pinching points for the PML-N finance czar. Rest will be relying on political point scoring, verbosity and rhetoric. Presenting his fifth budget in a row, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was not looking for immediate surge in public approval through their last budget in this elections year. He is actually relying more on the end to power outages by mid 2018, the same time the ruling party will end its five years tenure in power. He knows well an end to loadshedding means, a major election promise fulfilled, and then by keeping the inflation low, the traditional urban-rural poor back ground to lower middle class vote bank could be satisfied for now. Naturally with a promise to do more, if they allow another 2018-23 tenure. A big ask indeed. But then the huge infrastructure projects, especially under CPEC, would be enough to supplement the whole exercise. Opposition of the day however knows fully well if the PML-N delivers on the loadshedding front alone, it would be a hard nut to crack in elections 2018 – but only if Premier Sharif and family are able to clear their names in Panama case by the apex court.

Everybody knew PPP-PTI dominated opposition’s game plan as they sat in the National Assembly on Friday wearing black bands as a sign to protest of police high handedness against a bunch of farmers gathered at the famous D-Chowk. Premier Sharif was there mentally prepared for the things to come, so were allies like Achakzai and Maulana Fazlur Rehman. And then the PPP leading lights. PTI supremo Imran Khan didn’t turn up. At the outset of Friday’s proceedings, Opposition Leader Khursheed Shah stood up to speak on the issue they seemed desperate to cash in. Speaker Ayaz Sadiq resisted, contending it was not a parliamentary norm. Shah insisted as he found the Speaker in an uncompromising mood. Till this time, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had done his bit, as he surprised Sadiq revealing that Premier Sharif had already given his nod to allow the opposition leader 2-3 minutes to speak. It’s not music to the ears of the Speaker, as he told Dar it was inappropriate and against the parliamentary norms. The Speaker could guess opposition’s game plan, while Dar wanted the fuss to end quickly. Finally, the Speaker had to give in as a matter of strategy, and allowed Shah to deliver a fiery sermon — high on emotion and rhetoric, low on substance. As he came down hard on the government for the police-farmers clash, Shah wanted the Speaker to allow all the opposition parliamentary leaders to speak. The devil was in the detail, and hence a 10-15 minutes long rumpus, sloganeering led by PTI bandwagon. PPP followed as some of the PTI young guns gathered in front of the Speaker’s dice. Led by agitation hardy Dr Shireen Mazarri, some of them tore apart budget papers. Soon all of them walked out, providing the much needed relief to Dar who could then speak with ease in absence of the loud background noise and slogans of the highest pitch. The opposition fold however returned to the House within half an hour of the walkout.

The protest at Islamabad’s D-Chowk by some famers was orchestrated in a way to provide some agitation points to the opposition, especially the PPP. A small group of 300-400 people was exaggerated to a figure of 2,500 by none else than Opposition Leader Khursheed Shah as he tried to score some points at the outset of Ishaq Dar’s budget speech.

An hour and a half earlier the same group was addressed by none else than Shah at D-Chowk employing all the rhetoric and verbosity at his disposal. Inside Parliament, the opposition leader employed a valid argument that the people should not have been subjected to tear gassing and baton-charge as is always the case with administration and police who go for an overkill after getting a signal from the political administration. So what was the way out? There should have been some negotiations between the protesting farmers and ministers, one argument goes.

Monday is however another day. On that ‘fateful day’ led by Khursheed Shah the opposition leading lights as well as government ministers will give their official reactions cum sermons.