At a time when terrorism is increasingly worrying the world, we in Pakistan witnessed fireworks between the ruling PML-N and PPP over the Rangers’ powers in Karachi.

Last week, a newspaper cartoon depicted the emerging political volatility by showing the Sindh chief minister painting the letters ST before RANGERS, making them ‘Strangers’.

Even though the Rangers have brought a welcome sense of normalcy to the chaotic capital city of Sindh, PPP became wary of its operations when it used enhanced powers granted to it under the National Action Plan (NAP) to raid provincial government offices and arrest political leaders.

PPP was so infuriated that its chairman Bilawal Bhutto called NAP the Nawaz league Action Plan being used to settle scores with his party.

His self-exiled father, former president Asif Ali Zardari, accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of reviving the politics of the 1990s, which saw both the parties scheming twice with the Establishment to overthrow the government of the other.

They came to senses to sign a Charter of Democracy in 2006 - only after another military takeover, which ended with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, two-term prime minister and wife of Zardari.

Behind their latest flare up also lurks the military’s vow to carry its Zarb-i-Azb operation against homegrown terrorists - and their collaborators - to its “logical end”. Karachi operation has become a part of it because terrorist groups have long mingled with criminal and political mafias in the port city.

Prime Minister Sharif and his PML-N never miss an opportunity to claim the credit for launching the Karachi operation and the successes achieved by the armed forces in countering terrorism.

But for Bilawal Bhutto and his PPP, the PML-N government is using the Rangers in Karachi for political vendetta.

While the PML-N and PPP are making the headlines, other political parties have their own views on the aim of the Karachi operation and the policing powers given to the Rangers by the federal government ignoring the reservations expressed by the PPP through a provincial assembly resolution.

Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf party ranks third in popularity, has advised the federal and provincial ruling parties to keep their politicking out of the efforts to bring peace to Karachi but specifically asked the latter not to risk the Karachi operation for political reasons.

And the religious Jamaat-i-Islami favours “a ruthless operation” in Karachi where it once held the office of mayor.

Some 10,000 people died in targeted killings when the mega city was ruled by MQM and PPP.

Citizens feeling relieved in the wake of the Rangers’ operations wonder why the PPP and the PML-N are fighting each other over the policing powers of the Rangers when the real power lies somewhere else?

Before leaving the country to the safety of Dubai, Asif Zardari had spoken about a military-led “witch hunt” of the PPP leaders in the country, and threatened he will release a list of army generals allegedly behind it if the witch hunt did not stop. But since then, his party has turned its guns against the PML-N and its top leaders, Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif, instead.

“For they make soft targets,” said a seasoned journalist.

A senior PPP official accepted that the party leadership recognised that the military controls the Karachi operation, not the PML-N government. Then why blame the prime minister and his party?

“Because we cannot sit idle while our leaders are arrested,” he said. The party ranks are also bitter that the PML-N leadership did not return the favour the PPP did by vociferously supporting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his government against the prolonged PTI-PAT street agitation in Islamabad for their removal last year.

“We feel the federal government is siding with the Rangers against PPP in Sindh and so the only plausible target for us in that scenario,” the PPP official said.

In background discussions, the PML-N leaders accept that “in certain cases, the Rangers overstepped their powers” in arresting politicians and raiding government agencies. “But how could the federal government undermine itself by criticising its own agency?”

A PML-N lawmaker reminded that it was a fact that the Rangers have brought peace to Karachi and the federal government could legitimately claim credit for it. Ideally, though, all issues, including the arrest of Dr Asim Hussain, should have been discussed and resolved by the apex committee where all parties are represented, he said.

“If Dr Hussain was involved in terror financing, his case must have been prosecuted on the basis of strong evidence which the Rangers claim to have. Until now nothing has come out in concrete terms,” added the PML-N legislator.

Even the issue of Rangers’ powers was “a simple case of politics both sides are playing,” according to him. “Otherwise, they know that neither the Rangers would agree on clipping their powers, nor the political governments could take any tough decision on the matter.”

Former president of Supreme Court Bar Association Yasin Azad seemed spot on when he said: “If the Sindh government is not happy with the operation run by the Rangers, it could return the civil armed force to the federal government. Why raise all this fuss?”

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2016