EDITORIAL: The much-awaited return of Imran Khan to his Banigala residence in Islamabad on Sunday and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI’s) core committee’s take on political issues unmistakably lend a new hue to the party’s perspectives.
At the meeting, the PTI top brass did decide against verification of members’ resignations and promptly rejected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s call for a ‘grand dialogue’ on economy, but it did decide to fiercely contest the Punjab Assembly by-elections.
However, the position it adopted most passionately was resistance to any move aimed at arresting PTI chairman Imran Khan, warning that its workers would take to the streets whenever they get such news.
This was the party’s response to Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah’s oft-repeated assertion that Imran Khan would be arrested once his pre-emptive bail is vacated. Emphasising, albeit crudely, his threat, the interior minister said the same very police who are giving protection to Khan will also arrest him because there are almost a dozen and a half FIRs against him. The government would be well advised not to go to that extent if the prime minister wants to host a ‘grand dialogue’.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan must not lose sight of the fact that politics is the art of the possible and it is not a ‘jihad’ per se. If his party wants to win Punjab Assembly by-elections and regain the right to govern country’s largest province through an electoral victory why then its legislators are absent from the National Assembly; they must go back to the lower house of parliament to occupy the Opposition benches that now belong to them. The PTI’s future, as of all other political parties, is in a functioning democracy.
The core committee also took position on a few other issues. In a presser following the meeting, PTI Vice-Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a former foreign minister, expressed his surprise over incumbent Foreign Minister Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari’s “mysterious silence” over the government-Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan talks being facilitated by the Afghan government, although the Foreign Office had extensively briefed the media on these talks.
The committee also took a swipe at the amendments to the National Accountability law, saying the amendments have been made to benefit some ‘influential’ people. Amending the National Accountability law was the longstanding demand of the then Opposition and the present-day government.
Its stance in this regard was also shared by many, particularly the bureaucracy and the business class. Much to the chagrin of the PTI leadership, however, the amendments to the electoral law discard the introduction of previous government’s much ballyhooed electronic voting machines anytime soon.
Essentially, the PTI leadership had to beat a hasty retreat for its takes on three issues. One, Imran Khan tried to malign the armed forces’ nonchalance with regard to national politics, although he later did try, albeit unsuccessfully, to clarify his position. Two, as the march towards the capital had fizzled out some of his party leaders, particularly the KPK chief minister, promised to come to Islamabad ‘fully armed’ with the force of the province.
Three, his reading that his ouster has the inbuilt potential to split Pakistan into three parts didn’t sit well with anyone in Pakistan. Is it that he, of course wrongly, believed in “After me, the flood”. He is, therefore, requested to revisit his nihilistic expression or thought without any further loss of time.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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