An Important Debate & Khawaja Asif is right

Daily Times, August 8, 2006
Asif and Bhindara slug it out
By Rana Qaisar

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) firebrand parliamentarian, Khwaja Asif, often stirs up the otherwise dull and monotonous national assembly session.

Soon after the Question Hour, which unusually remained dreary on Monday with some of the members exchanging pleasantries and others relaxing fully-stretched in their comfortable revolving chairs, Khwaja Asif, on a point of order, objected to what he called a malicious campaign in media to malign the parliamentarians. He wanted the speaker to make the salaries, perks and privileges of the members public so that the people should know what benefits their representatives are drawing form national kitty.

He referred to media reports suggesting that the parliamentarians are the most privileged class of society with unmatched financial benefits and privileges. Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain agreed to Khwaja Asif’s proposal and deputed Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi to furnish the details of a parliamentarian’s salary, allowances, perks and privileges in the house so that the impression that a huge amount, as claimed by MP Bhindara, goes waste as this parliament could not serve the purpose it was elected for.

A private TV channel took this issue to parliament cafeteria and brought Khwaja Asif on record to express his concern before the camera. I wonder the TV channel will not telecast what Khwaja Asif said because it was all in defence of parliament and against “unparliamentarily” forces which always targeted this national institution in national interest. Khwaja Asif is not a first-timer. He was first elected to the national assembly in 1991 and this the fourth time that he consecutively won the election. His father, Khwaja Safdar was elected in 1952 and he continued to be member of all assemblies till 1985. With this privileged political background, Khwaja Asif is more political than those who “guide” politics in their own way.

His concern was that the parliamentarians are being targeted only to prove that they are a burden on national exchequer and an impression was being deliberately created that the tax-payers money was being wasted in running this parliament which, we all know, has been reduced to a mere rubber stamp not by the politicians like Khwaja Asif but by those who control it sitting in offices which are constitutionally answerable to this elected body. “Draw a comparison that how much money from national exchequer is spent on a parliamentarian, a general and a judge with all material benefits each of them gets in his lifetime,” he said.

While he was talking to the TV channel, MP Bhindara, who often advocates strict adherence to the rules while conducting the business in the house, stepped into the cafeteria and was immediately dragged into the on-camera discussion. MP Bhindara, for the reason only known to him, outrightly discredited parliament for having served no purpose rather than wasting time and money. “Ten million rupees are spent on one parliamentarian in one year and this amount goes waste. We are here to legislate but…,” an upset MP Bhindara said but was interrupted by Khwaja Asif who asked his colleague not to unreasonably target parliament and its members. “If you are so perturbed by parliament’s below-the-mark performance, have moral courage and draw its comparison with other institutions,” Khwaja Asif said.

The tempers rose and all those present in cafeteria gathered around Khwaja Asif and MP Bhindara with latter insisting that it was wastage of money to run this parliament and the former defending it for the simple reason that if this institution was not performing it was not the fault of the parliamentarians. But MP Bhindara insisted that a majority of parliamentarians are here only to get material benefits beyond their salaries, perks and privileges. Khwaja Asif did not agree and mockingly said: “Had my father and I been in army, we would have got much more in the form of plots and other benefits than what my family had had in politics during the last fifty years.”