ISLAMABAD: PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri’s resounding no to be part of the threatened lockdown of Islamabad by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has come out as a major setback to Imran Khan’s drive to render the Nawaz Sharif government dysfunctional.
However, considering his mercurial nature Qadri is capable of changing his mind if approached by people who have a decisive say in influencing him. Whether one believes him or not, he has the “scholarly” skills to vehemently justify any decision.
More desperate to bring Qadri around to playing his role in the planned October 30 shutdown is Sheikh Rashid, Imran Khan’s only political ally having no public following whatsoever, than the PTI chairman. The entire politics of the lone ranger from Rawalpindi revolves around badmouthing not only key government figures, but also all top politicians, who call for sanity in politics.
Since Sheikh Rashid is a trusted adviser of Imran Khan, enjoying more sway than several PTI leaders, the desperation he has shown to convince Qadri is not his own alone, but also has the blessing of the PTI chairman. But the mission has failed to start with.
However, even before Imran Khan’s stinging remark that he had not sought the hand of anybody but talked about political cooperation in his protest campaign had annoyed Qadri, the PAT chief was disinclined to play ball with him in the agitation for having his own independent agenda. But this cutting comment, made twice, further exasperated him.
Additionally, Qadri has never acted as a free agent. He is always tuned to sing in a certain manner. Since he has not been prodded to be a partner of Imran Khan, he is staying away from him. He has not yet forgotten the 2014 misadventure that he had to wrap up unceremoniously when he had totally dried out financially and physically.
The element of violence that protest campaigners always love to creep in their agitation would have been readily available to the PTI had Qadri joined the movement for the simple reason that he has a large battalion of a diehard horde that would do anything on his commands. In 2014, his disciples had caused the unparalleled mayhem and chaos, unheard of in Pakistan’s history. The PTI workers were also part of this anarchy and had benefited from it a lot. They could sustain their protest for a long time only because of the PAT’s support.
Regardless of their enthusiasm, the PTI activists do not possess any great resilience and vigour to face stringent administrative measures to quell violent agitation. This time the government is unlikely to be as lenient and helpless as it was in 2014 to allow storming and jamming of Islamabad as well as the state machinery.
It is no secret that Imran Khan wants the government to lose its nerve and do something that gives rise to violence so that he can further boost up his movement. If such shows end peacefully as has been the case most of the time, the real objectives can’t be achieved because the pressure mounted by them remains limited to just one day. It evaporates as the day passes by. But protest can prolong if there is violence.
However, despite his extreme decision to lay an indefinite siege to Islamabad Imran Khan has avoided taking certain severe steps that he had resorted to in 2014. The PTI members of the national and Punjab assemblies have not been ordered to resign like earlier when they had stayed away from the legislatures for months and come back in a humiliating manner, stomaching unprecedented taunts and jeers from their rivals.
The PTI chairman has not issued calls for a civil disobedience movement, non-payment of government charges and taxes, non-remittance of foreign exchange by Pakistani expatriates through formal banking channels etc. He had taken these illegal, illogical and unreasonable steps in 2014 that would remain a big stigma on his political career.
Imran Khan has also chosen Sunday for the first day of the protest, a day when the federal government hardly functions and Islamabad is quite inactive for observing the weekly holiday. Therefore, locking down the federal capital will hardly be of any consequence on that day as far as government functioning is concerned.
What the PTI has so far made public is just a vague programme to blockade Islamabad. A lot of details need to be released. It will be important to know the contents of the PTI request to the capital administration seeking permission for the protest. If it said the protesters will besiege Islamabad, it would be instantly denied. If it stated that the PTI wants to hold a public rally, it might be allowed at a specific venue, not the one demanded by it. But it would be supposed to be a one-day show.
There is universal consensus that Imran Khan’s extreme mode of protest is meant to block Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif come what may to reach the 2018 general elections in his office. The reason is that he fears that if the government was allowed to complete its constitutionally mandated five-year tenure, it would demonstrate a better performance in the next parliamentary polls on the basis of its great development agenda. It is known to all and sundry that by the time its term will expire, most of the mega projects will be completed in addition to overcoming of the power shortage. Such a scenario is dreadful for Imran Khan and all sorts of other challengers of the prime minister.
