[wp_ad_camp_1] Capturing legislators of another party may mess the political situation
By Zaib Azkaar Hussain
Karachi
The meeting of more than a dozen unhappy members of PML-N from national and provincial assemblies with Prime Minister Imran Khan is being termed by the political observers a signal of party division.
This division may benefit the ruling party and it would ultimately exploit the situation in strengthening the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the observers note. However it is obvious that the change of political affiliation of a certain party to support the ruling one has never brought about meaningful results and instead it caused a serious political crisis. The ruling party whenever adopted a strategy of tempting dissidents of an opposition party to join it and become a minister or hold some other position, it lost its ground. The past incidents of changing political loyalties have never been appreciated and due to these bad instances, laws of prohibition of floor crossing were made.
The most of the past rulers had been assigning governors and chief ministers to hold secret meetings with the legislators of the opposition parties and tempt them with different ‘offers’ to change their political affiliations and join the government of the day. Interestingly, this time the man who showed his presence at the meeting was Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar. Buzdar has a very good political reputation and it seemed hard to believe that he would work on such a relatively negative scheme.
There are reports that a group of angry legislators of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) met Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday at his Bani Gala residence. According to the reports, the PML-N lawmakers who were not happy with the attitude of their leadership, held a meeting with the prime minister and it hinted that these angry members may join PTI in coming days.
Surprisingly, Special Assistant to PM Imran Khan on Political Affairs Imran Naeem ul Haq confirmed that 15 MPAs of PMl-N met PM at Bani Gala and the meeting continued for 1.5 hours. He said “The hopes of PML-N MPAs from Punjab continue to get shattered with their party as was obvious in their today’s meeting with the PM”. According to the report, the lawmakers were in contact with the PTI leadership for sometime even before the approval of fiscal budget and absence of opposition legislators at the time of passage of the budget is also being connected with the part of the same ‘contact’. An elected member cannot change his party or cross floor referred as the Constitution restraints “floor crossing” against the will of the leadership. There is no way out to adjust dissidents. Hence, the rulers can get benefit of legal status of the detained PML (N) leadership by challenging the same in the court to seek legal relief in this regards. Yet it is still a far cry and instead they can face allegations of corrupt practices regarding the constitutional roles of the elected legislators.
