Hot summer raises temperatures and tempers
Poisoned barbs are being traded almost daily on two fronts, internally within Parliament and on the eastern front. Yesterday the DGMOs of Pakistan and India talked on the hotline, a mechanism to lower tensions during an escalating military situation, but ended up issuing accusations, threats and warnings. But their martial roles call for this and inwardly, as realists, they must be fervently wishing that any crisis does not reach the powder–keg stage.
The other front is more distressing because it concerns our perpetually feuding mainstream political parties, whereas the very raison d’etre of these assemblages is to resolve the contradictions and disputes existing within their society in a peaceful and fair manner. Recently, the latent mutual suspicion between the PML-N and the PPP, always lurking beneath a thin veneer of ‘friendly opposition’ heated up into an unthinking angry rhetoric, a spiralling bitter tit-for-tat which has soured parliamentary decorum, diminished meaningful working of both Houses, and caused distress all round.. All opposition parties are staging a daily walkout from the NA since May 26, after a biting statement by Khursheed Shah.
The loose language employed by parliamentarians of PML-N and PPP is only intensifying the growing divide between them and reaching the point of no return. PTI has temporarily lost its monopoly in this regard. Khursheed Shah comments icily on sundry matters embarrassing to PML-N besides making controversial remarks like Sindh turning off the gas for other provinces, while the Treasury minister responds with equally sharp rebukes that opposition boycott was damaging democracy and sanctity of Parliament.
The resentment aroused in the National Assembly in denying live coverage by PTV to the leader of the opposition’s rejoinder speech on Budget 2017, has spread to the Senate On Monday, PPP’s Senator Taj Haider locked horns with the abrasive Mushahidullah Khan in an argument more personal than political. The two parties seriously need to eschew such immature behaviour and live up to the basic expectations of their long suffering and despairing voters.
