By Sardar Khan Niazi
PTI Chairman Imran Khan has announced the Long March on Islamabad, which will kick off today from Lahore’s Liberty Chowk in the morning despite the government’s repeated warnings. However, he has announced that Long March will be peaceful and PTI supporters will not run amok in Islamabad.
He dubbed his “Azadi March” as the “biggest freedom movement” in the country’s history after getting a boost from the Supreme Court’s decision, which earlier rejected the federal government’s request to stop immediately the Long March to Islamabad,
The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), nonetheless, has advised the government to hold talks with the former prime minister. No one can deny that there is a need on both sides to avert the impending confrontation and resolve their disputes without harming the economy or diverting attention from the suffering of millions of people facing hunger and disease. The way out is talks between the government and PTI.
Let us see whether the PTI will be able to pull out the sea of people that it expects or the Long March will come to an abrupt end with Imran Khan deciding not to go ahead with the sit-in like the Long March of May 26. Only time will tell whether the current Long March succeeds or not in forcing the government to concede an election date.
The PDM government has made its preparations. Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has chalked out a plan to counter the Long March of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) at any cost. However, he has promised to respond within the rules of law. The intended plan includes the deployment of the Army in the capital city’s Red Zone to stop the entry of protesters into the high-security area. The personnel of Islamabad and Sindh Police, Rangers, and FC will also be deployed to ensure law and order in the capital city.
In the past, Tehreek-e-Insaf did politics in the name of accountability for corruption. Today, the PDM is carrying out actions in the name of the interest of the state. The ironic side of the current political state of affairs is that the people in general and flood victims, in particular, are facing ever-increasing problems.
Unfortunately, the people have never been the priorities of the political parties belonging to the government or opposition and they are well aware of this. Deep down they know that political leaders are unconcerned about their plight.
The PDM government and the opposition i.e. the PTI are paying no attention to the fact that if they are unable to bring before the public a balanced and workable program that will help perk up their daily life standard, they will never be able to get their support.
It would have been so nice to see if the government and the opposition had joined hands for the economic liberation of the people. In this way, they would have made it easier for the economic managers of the country to move forward by recommending remedies that could have helped cure the economic ill health of the country.It is very sad that no political party has given a program to improve the existing state of the economy. They are simply desirous of overwhelming their political rivals. They do not have very much to demonstrate to the people of this country as far as their performance or their programs to lessen the sufferings of the poor are concerned. Snowballing inflation and unemployment have distressed the people.
The people of the country are in a crisis yet the government and the opposition keep playing political games, instead of thinking about the miseries of the people. How this scenario is going to change, nobody knows.
