Azad Jammu
and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed returned to the seat of
his government late on Sunday after almost a month, in what has been the
longest absence of the chief executive from the state capital.
However, he will not be
here for too long, as he is again scheduled to fly to the United Kingdom on
November 6 to “supervise” arrangements for a public meeting of PPP chairperson
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on November 15.
Recently, the AJK premier had
announced from UK that he would organise a “biggest ever public meeting in the Britain’s
history” for Mr Bilawal in Birmingham.
The announcement was made
by him in the wake of an unpleasant happening with the young PPP chairman at London’s
“Kashmir Million March” on October 26. It is still unclear that who had invited
Mr Bilawal at the event, which the organisers had repeatedly declared would
remain apolitical and Kashmir centric.
It may be recalled that Mr
Majeed had left Muzaffarabad on October 4 for Kashmir House Islamabad,
cynically referred to as the de-facto capital of the AJK government.
From there, he drove to
his hometown for a day to celebrate Eid ul Azha and returned to Kashmir House
to stay there until October 9, missing the 9th anniversary function of the
devastating October 8, 2005 earthquake in Muzaffarabad, to the chagrin of
government officials, opposition and civil society.
On October 9, Mr Majeed flew along with many of his cabinet
colleagues to Karachi in connection with PPP’s October 18 public meeting where Mr
Bilawal formally launched his political career in the country.
Mr Majeed and his cabinet
members camped themselves in the provincial capital for ten days,
notwithstanding criticism back home, only to remain in the good books of their
party leadership.
He returned from Karachi
on October 19 and after staying in Kashmir House over the next five days, flew
to France on October 23.
The purpose of visit,
according to an official notification, was to attend the book launch of
‘Benazir Papers’ by PPP Senator Jehangir Badar and “interact with Kashmiri
Pakistani community and European parliamentarians in France, Belgium and UK.”
This time round, Mr Majeed
missed the 67th anniversary of the foundation of AJK government in the state
capital on October 24.
Interestingly, it was for
the first time that not a single cabinet member was among the attendees of the
police parade, which is the main event of the foundation day celebrations in
Muzaffarabad.
From Paris, Mr Majeed came
to London along with Mr Bilawal to attend “Million March” organised by
Barrister Sultan Mahmood, his archrival within the ruling party. However, he
remained largely unnoticed at the march, due to his unfriendly ties with Mr
Mahmood, an open secret in AJK.
The prime minister
returned to Pakistan on Monday and from there to Muzaffarabad late in the
evening, but only for two days, which incidentally were holidays. He left for Islamabad on Tuesday morning.
It was unclear whether the
expenses of his upcoming tour would be met from state exchequer or from
donations from the UK.
However, civil society was
up in the arms against the absence of the chief executive and most of his
cabinet members from the capital in the name of one or the other political
activity.
“He has been elected to
serve the AJK people. There is no justification for him to spend his time and the
taxpayer’ money on activities that are of no benefit to us,” said Abdul Hafeez
Azad, a civil society activist from Neelum valley.
University student Aamna Khan was more critical.
“This government has left
the AJK people at the mercy of circumstances. When the prime minister is away
for weeks and his cabinet members follow the suit the already dismal
governance is bound to go to dogs,” she said.
When asked, Shaukat Javed
Mir, one of the spokespersons of Mr Majeed, justified his absence of “for being
in connection with projection of Kashmir issue.”
“You see he has been busy
in engagements that have highlighted Kashmir issue. The criticism is simply uncalled
for,” he said.
Tariq Naqash
