ISLAMABAD: Those who intimately know Yousuf Raza Gilani are unanimous in their opinion that unlike Zafarullah Jamali, Ch Shujaat Hussain and Shaukat Aziz, he would not be a ‘yes boss’ type prime minister, after all.
Even in private discussions, Gilani has been telling his friends in the media that if he was given the chance to lead the country, he should not be taken as someone who would be the boss’s man.
When his name was being considered for the slot of prime minister when this race started, Gilani himself had called someone in the media to make it clear to him he would not be a yes man.
When told that this sort of impression might jeopardise his chances to become prime minister, Gilani did not get scared and spontaneously replied to this correspondent that he would not repent for a moment about saying this.
When Gilani was elevated as the speaker National Assembly, many had thought that like a typical Seraiki-speaking politician, he too would toe the line of his party leaders including Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari.
The polite and decent Gilani gradually made his presence felt in the House where the top leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto used to sit. This was one of the most difficult times for the politicians.
Nawaz Sharif’s and Benazir Bhutto’s political enmity had become a personal fight between the two giants. Fiery parliamentarians like Kh Asif, Sheikh Rashid and others had made the lives of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari miserable after the Surrey Palace scam was unfolded on the floor of the National Assembly.
Benazir Bhutto was fed up with Sheikh Rashid who used to use abusive language against her whenever she used to come to†parliament. Finally, Sheikh Rashid was booked in a case and sent to Bahalwapur jail.
As if this was not enough to punish the fiery parliamentarians, cases were brought against PML-N parliamentarians from Multan like Tahir Rashid and Haji Boota who were languishing in jails.
But, when the opposition put Gilani under pressure to issue orders for the production of their detained MNAs, Gilani did not get scared and used his powers as the speaker and summoned all of them.
This greatly annoyed Benazir Bhutto who was bent on punishing the parliamentarians of the PML-N. The defiance of Gilani was not appreciated by Benazir Bhutto and she was found complaining against her own hand-picked speaker.
But Gilani always explained to her that being the custodian of the House, he should be allowed to show his neutrality. Benazir Bhutto may have digested this excuse but then one day, she came to the chamber of Gilani with the instructions to terminate the membership of the son of Jam Sadiq who was found absent from the House for a long time without taking any leave.
Under the rules, Jam Mashooq Ali could be disqualified and this was what Benazir Bhutto wanted her speaker to do, in order to settle the scores of the past.
Gilani got alarmed as he did not want to go down in history as a speaker who had terminated the membership of a member of parliament.
Without the knowledge of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari, he immediately contacted Jam Mashooq Ali and asked him to send him an application for leave. He got the application on fax and made it part of the official record.
When Benazir Bhutto again checked with him, he quietly produced the same application before a furious Benazir. The then prime minister understood what her speaker had done. But she left his chamber without saying a word. Gilani knew that Benazir was angry with him, but he did not strike any deal on his principles.
However, he earned the respect of Benazir Bhutto when he preferred to sit in jail when NAB arrested him on charges of giving jobs. He was visited by many top spy agents in the jail but he refused to surrender.