He argued that his emergence as a leader in his own right would enhance Bhutto's rule. Bhutto's advisers suggested to him that two swords could not be accommodated in one scabbard.īhutto loved Mustafa like his own son and tried to admonish him like a father. Islamabad was abuzz with stories of his megalomania: he was rumoured to have said that he would be the next prime minister the people of the Punjab would catapult him into power. He developed a strong political personality of his own.

If Bhutto rejected Mustafa's nominees, Mustafa sulked and turned down the alternatives presented by Bhutto. Disagreements sprang up both on policy matters and personnel appointments. Mustafa also began to undertake crucial initiatives without first clearing them with the prime minister.

They realized that if the Punjab could be extricated from Bhutto's control he would fall, and they started to form a wedge between the two men. People with vested interests regarded his theories of Islamic socialism as anathema. Bhutto worried that Mustafa's inflated ego might persuade him to go his own way in politics -Īnd, if he believed himself to be the number two man, there was only one job to which he could aspire. Everywhere Mustafa went he was greeted with the slogan Sher e Punjab ('Lion of the Punjab'), and he acted the part of the number two man in Pakistan, which he was. Bhutto knew that the Punjab, being the largest province, was the vote bank of Pakistan, and thus the backbone of the People's Party he could not afford to lose it to his own Frankenstein monster. The Chief Minister of the Punjab was now a politician in his own right, emerging from the shadow of his mentor. However, gradually the relationship between Bhutto and Mustafa grew strained. He gave priority to the people he represented and precedence to their problems. On the other hand, the gates of the Governor's House and, later, the Chief Minister's House, were opened to the people of his constituency every Friday. Mustafa was compared to the Nawab of Kalabagh, the previous governor, favourably for his administrative abilities and negatively for his cruel tactics.

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