Is IK’s grudge against PML-N creating politically anarchy?

After having lost the battle against his arch-rival Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) led coalition of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman, Imran Khan has now pushed the ball into the court of the Establishment seeking its response if they were supporting the current regime led by Shehbaz Sharif who he considered as ‘thief’.

The PTI chairman now wants the Establishment that includes the superior judiciary, the Pakistan Army (Imran Khan now terms it Neutrals) and the bureaucracy to demonstrate by their deeds if they were with the current government or against it.

The former prime minister is found blaming the neutrals for collaborating with those who conspired to topple his government conveniently forgetting that he lost the majority in the National Assembly. He was ousted through a democratic process when a vote of no-confidence succeeded against him following all his allied parties leaving him and voting in favour of the move.

Imran Khan, in a recent media interaction, stated that he had warned the neutrals that under the Shehbaz government, the country would face worsening economic conditions. “I told those who were in a position to stop the conspiracy to succeed adding that the economy would suffer.”

Repeating his stance on what he believes neutrals are, Imran Khan said: “Animals do not distinguish between good and evil, while humans act according to their conscience. Allah did not allow us to be neutral as only animals are neutral”.

One does not know on what basis PTI Chairman Imran Khan claims that the people are looking towards institutions of the country amid a ‘sea of inflation’ and ‘foreign conspiracy’. In yet another expression of his hatred against his arch-rival, he pledged that come what he will not accept the coalition government led by the PML-N.

Imran Khan said that the political and economic instability was a huge challenge for the Supreme Court as well as the neutrals.

It may be mentioned here that Imran Khan’s narrative that the United States conspired to topple his government through its official Donald Lu has lost grounds. The manner he kept silent on the Cipher, received on March 7, for over three weeks before he waved an envelope in a public rally on March 27 was questioned by his political rivals and the national media as well.

Two successive meetings of the National Security Committee with the representation of all three services chiefs denied any element of conspiracy in the said Cipher. It was followed by a meeting of the Parliament’s National Security committee that too endorsed the findings of the earlier meetings.

After the failure of his Azadi March in which, he claimed tens of millions of people would arrive in Islamabad, he gave the government six days after which he would re-launch the march towards the capital to seek the final date for the next general elections.

However, keeping in view the poor response by people in the Punjab and other provinces except for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PTI did not make the second attempt. This could well be judged by the fact that the party Chairman changed the entire leadership of Punjab. He sacked Shafqat Mahmood as President and replaced him with Yasmin Rashad, the lady who dared to break the police cordon and tried to get to the G.T. Road for onward journey to Islamabad.

Now the PTI chief has gone a further step backwards and instead of seeking the final date for the next election, he is asking for assurance that the next polls would be fair and transparent.

A series of cases were registered against Imran Khan and all his party stalwarts for violating the law and order situation in the country. Imran Khan also appeared in a court seeking bail in several cases registered in different cities against him and his party colleagues.

On the other hand, Iran Khan has written a letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan seeking his verdict as to whether staging a protest demonstration was his right or not. The CJ of the Supreme Court has not yet responded.

At the same time, the PTI Chairman and his senior party leaders have been demanding the apex court to constitution a judicial commission to probe the contents of the Cipher if a conspiracy was hatched by the United States in collaboration with the PDM leaders by investing huge sums of money to force his members of the National Assembly to betray their party.

This may also be pointed out that there have been more than a dozen statements of Imran Khan and his comrades-in-arms accusing those they term ‘neutrals’, an apparent reference to the heads of security agencies.

The situation in Punjab is even worse where the Hamza-led government is far from being stable. His election as Chief Minister has since been challenged in the Lahore High Court by the speaker of the provincial assembly, Pervaiz Elahi. The worst part was that government could not present the provincial budget on the floor of the house and had to shift the premises to Iqbal Hall.

Knowing Imran Khan well as a stubborn person, one can be sure that he would not give up so quickly, it is expected that he would not let the sitting government have an open field to play, he has been consistently asking his flowers to prepare for the D-Day to launch a final blow. The response to his recent calls for protest on weekends may not be very encouraging, yet he can assemble a huge crowd for any march across the country.