FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

To poor Sher Afgan the Parliament has been generally hostile. Last month it was the Senate which heaped humiliation on him and on Monday it was the turn of the National Assembly.
For a newspaper report, which the minister said he never made, he was the target of the Opposition members from Sindh. Only when he apologised he was let off the hook.
The only difference this time from the previous occasion was that Speaker Amir Hussain did everything in his power to bail him out, as against the Senate treatment when Deputy Chairman also joined his tormentors. Luckily, Zafarullah Khan Jamali was there whose apology-on behalf of the treasury benches, Sher Afgan and his own-was finally accepted by the Opposition. Jamali twice interceded on behalf of the minister. But why was Jamali so conspicuously present?
The ex-prime minister was recently in London where he reportedly talked about his ouster by the same very powers which brought him to power. He spoke like a born democrat, who must have raised some eyebrows, and then his friends must have told him not to be "carried away" by the political climate of the British metropolis. Jamali was probably there in the house to make up for that waywardness.
Sher Afgan became the victim of his over-enthusiasm about the uniform issue. Last week he offered to speak about it frankly at a Meet-the-Press programme and also talked about Kalabagh Dam.
One of the reporters from amongst some three dozen present filed the story that the minister called the people of Sindh "foolish, mentally deranged" for opposing the project.
The members from Sindh raised the minister's reported remarks as breach of their privilege. Afgan defended his position by correctly asserting that he did not say these words "as all other journalists equipped with video cameras and tape-recorders who were also present must be deaf and dumb and did not quote him using these words". But then he faltered by saying that the said newspaper next day published his contradiction. That was a misstatement, in that he did offer contradiction but it was published in a sister newspaper and not the same.
The angry members used this mistake as the handle to beat him, until Jamali made the profuse apology.
In fact, all this useless discussion about an issue, which did not exist, was with some purpose. By the afternoon it was known that the committee that was given the uniform bill for whetting had completed its work-of course with a dissenting note written by Aitzaz Ahsan and signed by the MMA members also.
The committee report was to be laid in the House, which the government was eager to do as swiftly as possible and the opposition was keen on boycotting. So, when the report was laid the Opposition staged walkout.
Except the dusting down delivered to Sher Afgan proceedings were listless. The hangover experience by the "left outs" in the wake of cabinet expansion is still very much visible.
The government is still suffering from the quorum-short phobia. But the Opposition too was in low spirits, mainly because the widening rift between the ARD and the MMA is taking its toll. For the first hour or so the two segments of the Opposition sat by the side of each other like strangers.
Only after the leader of Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rehman came to the House they started exchanging faint smiles. But Sher Afgan episode proved stimulant and towards the end they were like friends again. They jointly protested the presenting of the uniform bill report, together they besieged the speaker's dais and then hand in hand walked out of the House.