A Few days ago, PML-N spokeswoman Maryam Ayranzeb said that in the upcoming Gigilt Baltistan Assembly election the drama of Result Transmission System (RTS) failure shall be enacted like the July 2018 polls across the country. To allay reservation of the opposition, Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaisar called a meeting of parliamentary leaders of all political parties to discuss the electoral reforms, for which invitations were sent. As the opposition has deliberately raised the bogey of likely rigging to hoodwink public opinion, hence they refused to attend the meeting on electoral reforms, which has to be postponed.
Leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Shabaz Sharif gave a novel and intriguing justification for turning down Speaker invitation to attend parliamentary leaders meeting. In a statement issued from Lahore, leader of the opposition said that Gilgit Baltistan was a sensitive national issue as it is linked with the cause of Kashmir. Does he mean that Gilgat Baltistan is not part of Pakistan and cannot be made full-fledged federating unit of the country. Giving a strange logic, Shabaz Sharif said that government should not sacrifice this issue for its politics and he alleged that government should not become a hurdle in holding transparent elections in Gilgit Baltistan. In this regard the point of view of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardar is different as he has said that the matter of giving the status of province to Gilgit Baltistan shall be decided after holding elections there.
Surprisingly, leader of the opposition has argued that Speaker National Assembly is not empowered to intervene in the election affairs of Gilgat Baltistan. How calling the meeting of parliamentary leaders to discuss electoral reforms amounts to intervention in election affairs of an administrative unit of the country? This sort of contention is beyond comprehension. Being custodian of the lower house of the parliament, it falls within the mandate of National Assembly Speaker to call the meeting of parliamentary leaders of political parties to develop consensus on a national issue of immediate nature.
In other words Shabaz Sharif h, either by default or design, subtly subscribed to the stance of India on Gilgit Baltistan. It was because of Indian opposition that the World Bank did not come forward for financing Diyamer Basha dam, the site of which is shared by Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province and Gilgit Baltistan.
