Nawaz Sharif Power wielders in theft and selective accountability

The son of a Muslim Leaguer, who was forced to quit the party back in 1998 on power-theft charges, is contesting election against the PML-N hopeful from NA-123. And, ironically, the party is found to be involved in power theft during an election rally in the same constituency.

Mian Miraj Din, father of Tehrik-i-Insaaf nominee for NA-123 by-poll Hamid Miraj, was excise and taxation minister in Shahbaz Sharif’s Punjab cabinet back in 1997. Mian Miraj was forced to resign when an army team, detecting power theft for Wapda on directions of then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, found the minister, besides some other party bigwigs, involved in stealing electricity.

The minister was forced to resign as Nawaz Sharif, also the party chief, rejected all the ‘review’ petitions.

What may be termed irony of fate, Nawaz was found the other day addressing an election rally the venue for which was being illuminated with stolen electricity. The blame for the offence has, however, been shifted to the town administration and the power utility’s employees as a Lesco line superintendent has been suspended and the town has been billed Rs3,000.

Though PML-N nominee Pervaiz Malik is set to win the bout for NA-123 against PTI’s Hamid Miraj, Jamaat-i-Islami’s Hafiz Salman Butt and around 50 others, the incident has underscored selective accountability in the party presently ruling Punjab.

Back in late 90’s, when Mian Miraj and MNA Begum Abida Husain were forced to resign on power-theft charges, there were over a dozen other PML-N leaders, like Naeem Chathha, Birjees Tahir and Raja Iqbal Mehdi, who were also found guilty of the theft by the army monitoring teams but were let go off the hook by the party leadership although the names of the accused were mentioned in a report submitted to Senate in this respect.

Similarly, MPA Shumaila Rana was caught in CCTV footage using a ‘stolen’ credit card and was made to resign her seat.

But, prisons minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor and adviser to chief minister Munawwar Iqbal escaped punishment—the former was found disputing with customs staff during an alleged bid by one of his friends to smuggle in precious items at Lahore airport and the latter was accused by a women activist of the party of molesting her.