Chaudhry of Chakri on a crossroads again

Ted Cruz, the Republican Senator who was the last to fall to Trumpnado 2016 in the race for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, is considered by many to be one of the most hated politicians in the US. Everyone who has worked with him, or knows him personally, ‘loathes him’, said an op-ed piece in New York Times. A prominent aide to George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign said: “…the quickest way for a meeting to end would be for Ted to come in.” Former Republican House speaker John Boehner once described him as ‘Lucifer in the flesh’.

Very few politicians in any country can inspire the visceral hate that Ted Cruz seems to generate in his colleagues, but there is someone in Pakistan who comes close.

He is a top politician who has been in the field since 1985 but leads a very secretive life. He is a rare commodity in the political maze whose ego can shatter mountains. He is known for personal integrity and honesty, and while he is not without friends, his egoistic and self-involved behavior has left him with considerably more enemies.

The man is Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, and he is Pakistan’s Interior Minister.

Chaudhry Nisar is on the crossroads of his long and brilliant political career, as observers say that he is being dumped by the PM House and the GHQ simultaneously. In a recent development, he has been removed as head honcho from the monitoring committee overseeing the implementation of the 20-point National Action Plan (NAP). Political observers say Premier Nawaz Sharif played a masterstroke by separating Chaudhry Nisar from NAP and replacing him with Lt General Nasser Janjua, a recently retired army general and the PM’s National Security Adviser.

It is no secret that the interior minister is not on speaking terms with several of his colleagues even in the federal cabinet. The prime minister himself has not been spared of his interior minister’s prickly ego and there were rumours that he stopped work and went home when he had a difference of opinion with him.

Background interviews and interactions with former and current colleagues and subordinates of the minister revealed that Chaudhry Nisar is not even on speaking terms with his own Secretary of the Interior Arif Khan; the same is said about another grade-22 subordinate officer, the Director-General (DG) of Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) Mohammad Amlaish, who has full support of Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Even the current chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, who served as interior secretary for four months under Nisar, was humiliated by him on several occasions.

It is also no secret that the Interior minister leads a secretive life: Very few have the minister’s personal cell phone number and even when someone calls, it is his sweet will if he even takes the call.

Even after the Quetta attack, the prime minister was unable to reach him. It is often said that Nisar’s cell phone is not for taking calls, but for making them. When the premier wanted to take him along to Quetta, he was informed that after getting up a little late, the interior minister goes on a walk. Afterward, he has brunch at Punjab House in Islamabad, which has become a sort of camp office for him.

The tiff between the PM and the interior minister reignited after Ishaq Dar had a secret meeting with Asif Zardari where the former president linked his party’s cooperation over Panamagate with leniency by the federal government in cases related to Dr Asim Hussain and Ayyan Ali.

However, this deal did not go well with Nisar who went public with his opposition to the deal on August 12, telling media at a press conference that the PPP was looking for a breather for its cooperation with the PML-N. The presser, which was supposed to address the security situation of the country in the wake of the Quetta attack, reeked of pettiness towards Nisar’s personal enemies.

This press conference was not received well by the PM House.

Nisar-Dar tiff has a history too. The PML-N insiders claim that there is no love lost between Chaudhry Nisar and the so-called ‘Kashmiri Group’ who dominates the federal cabinet. The Chaudhry of Chakri is not on speaking terms with the group led by Ishaq Dar. The two parties are always lobbying and undermining each other. In a nutshell, Chaudhry Nisar has been isolated by the Kashmiris and his only ally has been Shehbaz Sharif in the PML-N’s inner circle.

But of late, the Punjab chief minister has been distancing himself from the interior minister, as during the PM’s treatment in London, Shehbaz raised the issue of the army chief’s extension on the request of Chaudhry Nisar. The proposal was rejected and the premier advised his younger brother to meet the army chief on his own, bypassing Nisar. Shehbaz then held two meetings with the army chief. In the past, the Sharif family used to communicate with the GHQ through Nisar.

Nisar is known for taking principled stances. One of the cabinet colleagues of Nisar says that he still remembers the time when Nisar was elected as a councillor back in 80’s and had declined to listen to his own father, late Brig (r) Fateh Khan, when it came to favouring his friends.

The tiff between Nisar and the elder Sharif has a history too. Before the 2013 polls, Chaudhry Nisar had lobbied to become the chief minister of Punjab and proposed that Shehbaz Sharif be made minister for energy in the Center due to his proximity with the Chinese leadership. This would have sidelined another thorn in Nisar’s side, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who was eventually given the energy portfolio. Asif has himself admitted that the two haven’t spoken a word with each other in years.

Nawaz Sharif, however, not only shot down the proposal but also did not give the party ticket to Chaudhry Nisar for the provincial seat. Khawaja Asif, on the other hand, was given the party ticket, probably as a backup to Shehbaz Sharif, if something goes wrong.

Nisar, however, contested the election as an independent candidate and won. This further derailed relations between the PM and Nisar.

NAP implementation also has been a source of concern for the military leadership which has been asking the federal government not to let the gains of Operation Zarb-e-Azb go to waste.

Chaudhry Nisar has been held responsible in the recent past for failing to implement the NAP proposals.

The biggest blow to Nisar came this Monday, when the PM changed the captain of the NAP implementation team. The move was made in the aftermath of several statements by the military’s top brass raising concerns over the implementation of the NAP.

In his typical style, Nisar claimed in his press conference, that he had been the most effective person in implementing NAP and had performed better than his other colleagues in the federal cabinet. This assertion, however, was easily contested as people pointed out Nisar had been given charge of 11 out of the 15 committees set up to enforce NAP.

The implementation report which was presented to the prime minister last week showed that out of the 20 points of the NAP, only partial implementation had been done on 12 points, while no development had taken place on the remaining eight points.

NACTA sources have revealed that the interior minister attended meetings where military had representation on the committee and did not grace the meetings where only the civilians were present.

Officials in the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) claim that the interior minister, during meetings, is soft on army officials and comes down hard on civilians, including police officials.

Sources say that Islamabad IG Tariq Yaseen is also ill at ease with the minister and has been repeatedly snubbed by Nisar. National Police Bureau Director General Iqbal Mahmood was appointed six months ago but Nisar is yet to meet him. Furthermore, for the past three years, no medals have been awarded to police officials. Former Islamabad SSP Muhammad Ali Nekokara, a Harvard and London School of Economics (LSE) graduate, was ousted because he had declined to act on the verbal orders of Chaudhry Nisar during the Dharna days. Nisar had no qualms about getting rid of a competent officer who did not blindly act on his orders.

NACTA Chief Ihsan Ghani is one of the few officials who enjoy good relations with the minister, and it appears, the minister is keeping all his eggs in Ghani’s basket.

Another example of Nisar’s ‘high level of performance’ is the Safe City Project in the federal capital which was completed last year in December. The company made a request to interior minister to inaugurate the Safe City Project during the same month, but Chaudhry Nisar delayed it for more than six months and finally showed up to inaugurate the project in June 2016.

Last year when a row between Chaudhry Nisar and Prime Minister Nawaz continued for many months, it was finally ended after media reports emerged suggesting that Nisar may join Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), while the PTI chief openly invited him to join their ranks. The news panicked the ruling party and a rapprochement was reached. However, this time around, it appears that Nisar may have over-estimated his indispensability.