Pakistan Muslim League and Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas, Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat are on a tug-of-war over the selection of technocrats and women councillors for the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC). The differences surfaced when the minister issued a directive to the secretary NALC to get fresh applications from the candidates for six technocrat seats in the council.
Sources told to Business Recorder that the minister intends to select the technocrats without consulting the ruling PML, while the party leaders are not in favour of their selection through Kana division, as their party is enjoying majority, having 16 out of 24 members in the council.
Ruling PML had already collected applications early in November 2004 without any qualification conditions. Recently the minister had directed that only postgraduate candidates having ten years professional experience could apply for the technocrat seats.
Party leaders rejected the decision of the minister and convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday in Islamabad to discuss the emerging situation. The ruling league takes the plea that the party has two third majority in the council hence the technocrats should be selected from PML.
A senior leader of ruling PML told this scribe that the party president Shujaat Hussain, Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Syed and Senator Nisar Memon are abroad, hence, taking advantage of the situation, minister for Kana is imposing his personal will over the majority party in the council.
The PML leaders who attended the meeting were Senator Akram Zaki, Iqbal Dar, Mehmood Hashmi, Senator Khalid Ranjha, Deputy Chief Executive NAs Mir Ghazanfar Ali, PML Secretary General NAs Bashir Ahmed Khan, Member NALC Muzzafar Advocate, Member NALC Dr Muzzafar Rallay, Member NALC Himayatullah, Member NALC Captain Sikandar (Retd) and Fozia Salim.
PML leaders have decided that all the 16 members will boycott the technocrats' selection process through the ministry of Kashmir affairs and Northern Areas, it is reliably learnt. They said that the criteria set by the minister was not a part of the Legal Framework Order (LFO).
A senior party leader contended that Northern Areas was a backward area, where such strict criteria regarding the qualification could not be applied, that was why the higher qualification and experience clause for NAs was not applicable for the area.
Commenting on the issue, Iqbal Dar of PML said that the law and order situation in NAs is not yet normal, in such a situation touching sensitive issues would further worsen the situation.
When this scribe approached Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat to comment, he said that the directives had been issued, however, the matter is pending till further decision.