[Dawn] The opposition PML-N raised on Saturday sharp questions about the performance of Pakistain's military in recent years, with one senior politician calling it confidence-shaking, before the National Assembly approved the defence budget of over Rs505 billion.It was during debates on more than 200 opposition cut motions on demands for grants for two federal ministries and two divisions that the military role came under what was probably the severest criticism during a budget discussion in the country's parliamentary history.
This is because "Pakistain's people are now compelled (to ask questions)", the PML-N's main speaker on the subject and former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
chief minister, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, said in a pointed speech before another prominent party figure and former minister, Ahsan Iqbal, and a couple of back-benchers also came hard on the role of generals for involvement in politics since first military ruler Field Marshal Ayub Khan seized power in 1958.
"Pakistain's defence failures for some years have shaken the people of Pakistain," Sardar Mehtab said as he accused the General Headquarters of imposing its will on domestic and foreign policy issues. "In the past few years, particularly in the past one year, people's confidence has been badly affected," he added.
This was the latest of a series of attacks on the military leadership in the lower house from the country's largest opposition party since the presentation of the budget for fiscal 2011-12 early this month.
Leader of opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan's was only a subdued criticism when he opened the general debate on the budget on June 6, but two other senior PML-N members, Khwaja Mohammad Asif and Ms Tehmina Daultana, came out with strident attacks in their speeches afterwards in what seemed to be a party policy, which attracted the charge, in a statement of a June 9 corps commanders' conference, of a showing "conceptual biases" to run down the armed forces.
Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar came out with only a brief ridicule of what he called Sardar Mehtab's "drum-beat" and politicisation of the situation and, while declining to go into politics, said the government would make every effort to strengthen the country's defence, before the house rejected all 34 cut motions and approved the defence ministry's demands, including the largest of Rs495 billion for defence services.