Disclosures about Mehrangate scandal are horrible like the ones revealed by the one-time Mehran Bank chief, Younas Habib, that expose the dirty game played hand in glove by agencies’ superiors and some politicians whose combined aim was ensuring the ouster of Pakistan Peoples Party from national politics. Or, plainly speaking, to show the door to the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed’s government.
And to everybody’s surprise the politicians who stand exposed include some self-righteous and self-opinionated leaders like Mian Nawaz Sharif and Mian Shahbaz Sharif who shout themselves hoarse day and night in painting others as corrupt and themselves as pious, neat and clean.
What negative impression is being formed in the minds of the masses that constitute the electoral college for general elections? What then can one expect the outcome of next general elections which don’t now appear to be a remote possibility? Observers from almost all walks of life who are not only confined to media alone and who have been watching the political scene since those days with an analytical approach, are even otherwise well aware of the stealthy moves undertaken by some agency top guys and power-hungry politicians to ‘create’ Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI).
IJI’s birth had nothing to do with our faith that was, however, exploited to ascend to the corridors of power although poisoning of public mind was an essential byproduct of this negative process launched by characters like General Aslam Beg and the spymasters under his command. But, by all human standards, the beneficiaries of this lucrative scheme just can’t be absolved of this sin that they committed in league with their mentors and benefactors who had been filling their coffers. It is political corruption as viewed by legal experts and intelligentsia. And it is going to impact negatively on the image of beneficiaries of Mehran bounties, even if the amounts involved did not cross the few-million-mark.
Those who are aware of the appreciation of Rupee over these so many years know it well that even a small figure of Rs 2.5 million that Younas Habib claims to have sent to Mian Shahbaz Sharif during those days through TT (Telegraphic Transfer), now amounts to more than 25 million. The question, however, is not that of the amount involved rather that of corrupt practices and of the corrupt mindset. Yet greater corruption is playing games and hatching conspiracies aimed at the overthrow of popularly elected governments. Isn’t it surprising to note that now those leaders stand exposed who claim to be the torchbearers of piety, transparency and clean politics and who are always crying hoarse in painting their political rivals as corrupt (Mian Shahbaz Sharif uses the term ‘loot khasoot’ for his political opponents with amazing confidence as if he has solid proofs of their corrupt practices which he has not). The most significant point in this context is not the revelations made by Younas Habib but his solemn declaration that he is disclosing things out of conscientious realisation following his nemesis (physical handicap etc).
Information Minister, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, has very well described the situation and likened the self-opinionated CM Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif with someone who oversteps his limits to hit the popularly elected head of state (President Asif Ali Zardari) below the belt in sheer disregard for the latter’s stature that the Constitution has conferred on him (the President).
And if one were to go by the latest press statements of Interior Minister Rahman Malik, then one is likely to believe that Mian brothers would be in trouble (though for the first time provided the national institutions take a transparent route in line with their commitment to ruthless justice for all) given the startling – and perhaps incriminating – material that the Minister claims to have in his agencies’ (FIA etc) possession in a variety of forms.
It was certainly in that backdrop that the Prime Minister, Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani, has stated in a confident tone while talking to media that PPP has remained on the defensive for years and years together, courtesy many anti-PPP conspiracies hatched by its rivals on a regular footing whereas the PML(N) was now facing the music of this type for the first time. Rahman Malik also uses almost the same words for PML(N)’s top leadership and claims that these leaders would have to face a lot of trouble in terms of tarnished image as well as in terms of legal fights in courts once he (Rahman Malik and his team) were given an opportunity to make the disclosures. Obviously, Malik is alluding to political bribery that was made use of by the Mehran Bank-ISI-IJI nexus of those times to stage-manage the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto regime.
All this is disgusting despite the fact that it is a bygone story of the remote past. If the past has been so much chequered then it makes us believe that the very edifice of our establishment-sponsored politics has wreaked havoc on the common man’s right to elect representatives to run the public affairs. It is not only corruption but political dacoity as well that aims at usurping the masses’ fundamental adult suffrage right and depriving them of the levers of accountability.