FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

Both the Senate and the National Assembly on Thursday held marathon sittings to discuss the federal budget, with opposition dominating the proceedings but it was Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan who stole the limelight. Not only that he demanded resignation of Leader of Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rehman but also put his own job on the line by admitting that he had offered resignation which the prime minister did not accept.
By making public his bid to resign the minister stood retired, contended Liaquat Baloch and Aitzaz Ahsan, but Speaker Amir Hussain, like scores of his other rulings, in this case too reserved his ruling.
While in the Senate discussion on the budget took off straight away, with Anwer Bhinder insisting "for the poor this is the best-ever budget." The National Assembly warmed up a little late. First item on the orders of the day was the question hour, which brought nothing but disgrace to the treasury benches, because in some cases replies were not provided and in others the concerned parliamentary secretary "was not briefed by his ministry".
Visibly upset, the Speaker ruled that the concerned minister should pull up the non-co-operating officials, while he himself would write letter to the Prime Minister. The Speaker also rejected the suggestion that during the budget session there is no provision for the question hour.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, opening the budget discussion, attacked the government for taking dictation from the IMF and warned it would only trigger mini budgets.
Higher GDP is only because of good rains and "if no rains next year it would come down". Asserting that in the absence of the new NFC Award provinces lost something like Rs 200 billion in three years, the MMA leader blamed the Centre for exploiting the net beneficiaries, like the cat who ate up the whole bunch of quarrelsome mice claiming "but for my arrival, there would have been lot of bloodshed".
He ridiculed the privatisation process as carried out by the present government and warned should his party come to power all these privatised enterprises would be brought back under the government control.
Next door, in the Senate Ishaq Dar was busy demolishing the edifice of government's finance bill brick by brick. This 6th consecutive budget by the Musharraf-Aziz combine is catering interests of feudal and elite classes while there is no relief for the poor and the middle class.
According to him, food related inflation (CPI) has increased from 2.2 percent in 1999 to 12.8 percent in April 2005, an increase of 482 percent, whereas the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) increased from 1.8 percent to 12.0 percent, registering increase of 566 percent. Relief to the salaried class is a joke, he contented, and added that in Pakistan 40 percent of population lives with one dollar a day and another 43 percent with less than two dollars a day.
Dar rejected the official claim of reducing domestic and external debts, insisted unemployment has gone up and privatisation process has been non-transparent.
Habib Bank was under-sold at $384 million against its potential to fetch about $600 million, Dar claimed, adding the PTCL privatisation has been grossly mishandled. PTCL imbroglio also figured prominent in the opposition members' speeches in the National Assembly that provoked IT Minister Awais Leghari to throw challenge for a debate.
He did not receive a response but a light-hearted speech from Hafiz Hussain Ahmad who proposed that given VVIPs serious security concerns they should travel by armed carriers instead of high-priced bullet-proof cars. Amin Faheem too spoke on the budget, but remained peripheral.
It is the parliamentary oppositions' recognised right to oppose everything and propose nothing, but there was hardly a cogent defence of the budget from the treasury benches.
However, the ruling coalition member Saleem Jan Mazari's tribute to Shaukat Aziz that he is a latter-day Mahatir Muhammad turned many heads. Sher Afgan conceded he was a 'lota' but then made an interesting exposition that "all of them, on both sides of the aisle barring Mehmud Khan Achakzai, are flowers that have blossomed in flower pots of armed forces".
He asked Maulana Fazlur Rehman to resign from the office of Leader of Opposition because his refusal to attend the recent NSC meeting was consequent to a decision of the MMA supreme council to which majority of the opposition is not party.
But the speech, that was most critical, was by Chaudhry Nisar Ali of PML (N). He sought justification for the 15 percent increase in defence budget expressing fears that it would go into housing societies and shining cars. "Who is going to foot the bill for the F-16s that the government said it would be buying?" he asked.
The rigours of long working day, both for the parliamentarians and the media persons, were made less punishing by a sumptuous luncheon hosted by Maulana Fazlur Rehman and a dinner by Omar Ayub Khan. The day also became bearable for the thunderstorm that hit the Capital city in the afternoon as it took away some of heat from the air.
Inside the two Houses too tranquillity prevailed, which is expected to live on during the rest of the budget session. Now that most of top-notch leadership have already spoken on the budget sustaining interest in the debate may become problematic, at least till the cut-motions.