What led to the move to drop Mian’s nomination?

Despite his resolve to retain Atif Mian as a member of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC), internal dissent, coupled with “reports” of possible countrywide violent protests by religious organisations, forced Prime Minister Imran Khan to reverse the decision.Highly-placed sources said that the government had to swallow the bitter pill of taking a U-turn on the issue of Dr Atif Mian’s nomination as EAC member within three days after receiving reports that some religious groups were planning to stage sit-ins in Islamabad on Friday (September 7), at a time when foreign dignitaries from China and Saudi Arabia were scheduled to arrive.Moreover, the sources said, some members of the federal cabinet, including the religious affairs minister, urged the prime minister to review his decision, warning him that the situation could become ugly for the government at a time when it was still in the process of settling down.Khan was told that the government could face an embarrassing situation if the protests continued while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Saudi Information Minister Dr Awwad bin Saleh al-Awwad were in Islamabad.The lack of political support on the issue, mainly from the two major opposition parties, also played a role in forcing the government to review the decision, the sources added.The opposition parties say that the government had appointed Mian as EAC member without consulting them and later withdrew his nomination in haste, again without taking them or parliament into confidence.Within three days of its rhetoric about the rights of minorities, the PTI government buckled under pressure from religious groups and asked Mian, who belongs to the Ahmadi community, to step down from the prime minister-led EAC.It was on Friday that PTI Senator Faisal Javed and Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced that the government had asked the US-based academic to step down from the EAC.The PTI leaders said that the government had made the decision to avoid any controversy.The controversy has deepened further, however, when two more EAC members – Dr Asim Ijaz Khwaja from the Harvard Kennedy School and Dr Imran Rasul, a professor of economics at University College, London – quit the EAC over the withdrawal of Mian’s withdrawal.The sources said that the government had apparently succumbed to the pressure generated by notices submitted in both houses of parliament against Mian’s nomination in the EAC and a petition filed in the Islamabad High Court challenging his appointment.The “call to attention” notice in the National Assembly was submitted by Maulana Asadur Rehman, the son of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam – Fazlur (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and, in the Senate, it was moved by Maulana Ataur Rehman, the brother of the JUI-F chief.Parliamentarians belonging to the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N), and even liberals and secular nationalist parties from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces, had also put their signatures on the notice in the Senate.The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), however, did not support the move and its members flatly refused to sign the notice in the Senate.A PML-N senator later claimed that he and some other members of his party had also refused to sign the notice, adding that those PML-N members who had signed the notice had done so in their individual capacity as the party had no such policy.Sources in the ruling party said that besides Prime Minister Khan, a number of senior PTI leaders and some federal ministers felt “depressed” after the withdrawal of the nomination of Mian, a professor of economics, and the only Pakistani to be considered among International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) “top 25 brightest young economists”, and the resignation of two other members from the EAC.Even Jemima Goldsmith, Khan’s former wife, criticised the government decision in a tweet: “The founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam, appointed an Ahmadi as his foreign minister.“Indefensible and very disappointing. New Pak government asks renowned and respected Prof of economics to stand down because of his Ahmadi faith.”A PTI leader termed the situation “unfortunate”, saying that the move had damaged the party’s image.He said that the party had taken the decision keeping in view last year’s incident, when the previous PML-N government had been forced to accept most of the demands of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan after its sit-in at Faizabad against proposed changes to the Khatam-e-Nabuwat declaration for election candidates.The PTI leader admitted that his party had not supported the then-government at that time due to political compulsions, and now the opposition had done so in a “tit-for-tat” move.In a Twitter message, the PPP’s Senator Sherry Rehman opposed the “call to attention” notice, although another leader of the party, former deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly, Shehla Raza, had earlier criticised Prime Minister Khan, calling him a hypocrite as he had appointed the great grandson of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of Ahmadi faith, as his adviser.Sources in the PPP said that the party leadership had taken note of Shehla Raza’s tweet and reprimanded her.