The PML(N) and the Punjab government
This is not the time to weigh the merits of the Punjab government’s scheme of giving laptops to deserving students. If there are arguments against, there are arguments for as well and the representative political government is mandated to make decisions like these. For those who think the programme is extremely costly, if the provincial government prioritises decisions like these at a time the province is in dire fiscal straits, so be it.
What has to be discussed, however, is the ceremony at the Punjab University the other day, the one presided over by PML(N) supremo Nawaz Sharif. Now, yes, he is the party head and, as far as the provincial government goes, his word is the law; all he has to do is pick the phone up and call his younger brother, whose lot would be to comply. But pretences have to be maintained, especially at state educational institutions. At the Punjab varsity, his title in the League hierarchy means nothing in the official scheme of things. The chief minister would have been another story. The governor would have been an even better fit, being the chancellor of the varsity. The prime minister or the president, by the virtue of their constitutional offices, would have been alright. By getting the party head to lord over the ceremony, the government is making the event explicitly political.
Yes, the splurge on laptops is most probably premised on electoral dividends, especially given that the beneficiary demographic is being effortlessly wooed by emerging PTI, but the in-your-face political nature of the event at the university should have been avoided. Is the university’s VC more pliant to these transgressions, now that his tenure at the job has been extended by the present government? If these institutions are to become the centre for political activity – and it is reported that the varsity racked up quite a bill to arrange for the ceremony – then who is to stop other political parties to do the same? Through what rules would the university not allow, say, the MQM, the richest political party in the country, to approach the university for holding massive political rallies?
