Leader of the opposition, Chaudhry Nisar Ali, is known for being so vehemently opposed to Asif Zardari that he was once excluded from a PML-N meeting with the president. At the time, the PML-N’s Raja Zafarul Haq tried to spin his omission by joking that the meeting was a Test match while Nisar was a ODI and T20 player. Among other criticisms, Nisar accused Zardari of a “serious breach of the country’s sovereignty, independence and self-respect” for making a deal allowing former president Pervez Musharraf safe passage out of the country.

But if there is one person Nisar dislikes more than Zardari, it is Musharraf. Imagine then the quandary he faced when Musharraf  lashed out at Zardari. Taking the an-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend approach, Nisar declared that all public criticism of the president would henceforth be verboten:

“Our differences with the present government aside, we will not allow anybody to issue statements against the elected President of Pakistan”

It will be interesting to see how long this truce lasts. As yet, Nisar has not apologised for his statements against the elected president.

In the chutzpah race, though, it will be hard to top the Senate’s Standing Committee on Social Welfare and Special Education that “suggested that Zardari’s name should be mentioned in the ‘father’s name’ column in legal documents for orphaned children.”

But the committee took care to mention a second nominee:

[T]here was also a suggestion for putting the name of Pakistani philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi in the column as he also cares for orphans and other under-privileged children.

Let it be known that when ranking those who take care of orphans, the Senate standing committee believes Edhi is second only to Zardari.

It is hard to accuse Sarfraz Nawaz of chutzpah when no one other than the numerous media organisations who love to quote his rantings takes him seriously. Still, his mendacity should be publicised. Here is his comment on Younus Khan’s resignation as captain of the Pakistan cricket team:

Former Test pacer Sarfraz Nawaz says that nobody had a problem with Younus Khan being the Test team captain and it was only a mercurial decision from the skipper.

No one had a problem with it other than Sarfraz himself, who had this to say just three weeks ago:

He is losing his form and a non-performing captain can’t lead a team properly. He must say good-bye to captaincy and concentrate more on his batting and to retain his form.