The opposition sees it as a crack in the sinking ship of the ruling alliance, while some ruling party members may shrug it off as a routine discussion in a democratic party, the reported incident of an exchange of words between Prime Minister Imran Khan and Defence Minister Pervez Khattak offers many choices to the commentators. The source-driven story carried by almost all newspapers of the country says that the two personalities during a meeting of the parliamentary party of the ruling alliance remained engaged in a heated debate over the gas shortage issue. As is the norm, party heads are hardly confronted by workers and leaders in Pakistan, so the same might be the case with Prime Minister Imran Khan. Just like other leaders, he may never have faced tough and hard questions from his party. It is said that when Pervez Khattak raised the issue of depriving Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) of its due share of gas by the centre, and said the party may lose electoral support because of such treatment in the next elections, the prime minister reportedly became angry and called it a straight act of blackmailing him. The prime minister reportedly said that he does not own any industrial empire or has any personal benefits behind any policy, so he cannot be blackmailed. If the ruling party is unhappy with his performance, he is ready to quit the government and may hand it over to the opposition. Period.
The defence minister has distanced himself from the media reports, saying he never raised his voice in front of the prime minister, calling him his leader. The point is, why is there a fuss on the incident? Leaders in democratic setups face such grilling routinely, which acts as a watchdog. A political party should have the culture of showing patience to hear dissident voices from within the party and outside. Similarly, a party leader should have enough patience to get along with disagreements and have no ego issues. If the incident has occurred during the meeting of the parliamentary party of the ruling alliance, it should not be taken as a sign of the fall of the alliance. Similarly, the media should avoid creating a hype out of such incidents, and instead take such instances as a sign of self-accountability in parties. So far, the gas shortage, issue persists and may not go away in the times to come. The natural resource is not for domestic consumption, as all over the world, natural gas is used for power production and industrial consumption.
