Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has warned that his party will hit the streets again if the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) fails to come up with a response regarding his 40 questions. “If our questions remain unanswered about why this commission (ECP) is still in place, we will take to streets again,” Khan said speaking at a Kissan (farmers’) Convention held by his party at football ground at Vehari on Saturday. He said that PTI was strongly taking up the case of the ECP’s “incompetence” as was declared by the Judicial Commission in its verdict on the party’s 2013 poll rigging allegations. It is, rather, PTI’s knee-jerk resort to confrontation and agitation that is becoming cause for concern. It seems few lessons, if any, have been learnt from the long dharna that, ultimately, yielded precious little. Even now, when the party has a fresh chance at contributing to constructive parliamentary politics, it chooses to antagonise. It did not make its own way back to the Assembly any easier, especially with Imran threatening to lead a robust by-election campaign himself if MQM and JUI-F did not relent.
One would think that, after the findings of the Judicial Commission report, PTI would bow down gracefully and let the matter be. It has already received a lot of criticism over the whole rigging drama, including from its own supporters. Seeking scapegoats and making excuses now to salvage a lost cause will bring neither credit nor credibility back to the party. Yet Imran insists on finding his needle in the haystack of Pakistani politics. So after 35 punctures and Plans A to F (is that where we were on the alphabet of backup plane?) Imran is taking up the case of the ECP’s “incompetence”. He of course said other things too, important things, like calling on the farming community to vote for those who could make better agricultural policies. He said they should stop giving votes on the basis of lineage or family. He ended on a grand note, that if we ever ‘want economic growth in the country; we will have to help our farmers first’. How this is linked to the ECP, is beyond the layman’s comprehension. His 40 queries only marred what was a successful rally and an uplifting speech.
Imran is not seeing the whole picture. Yes, he has invested too much time in the anti-rigging protests with no gain, but he needs to accept the loss and move on. The stubbornness is only making him seem petulant and annoying. It has diminished him in the eyes of his opponents. What he should focus on is the actual progress PTI is making in KP, doing better than other political parties in the May 30 local government elections in KP. They won 256 of the total of 978 district council seats and made the JUI-PPP-ANP alliance ineffective. If Imran truly wants to make a change, he can by making his own province a model to follow and using his success there to push for votes in the Punjab.
pk.shafaqna.com
