Prime Minister Imran Khan, I have faith in you but…

Imran Khan is honest. Imran Khan will not bow to any pressure. Imran Khan knows how to manage. Imran Khan gets whatever he desires. We all hear these statements every now and then in discussions happening everywhere. As a staunch PTI supporter, I enjoy using these lines as much as I enjoy hearing them in discussions.

 And Mr. Prime Minster, I do have faith in you, but at the same time I do not want to be the kind of worker who tends to believe everything you say. I will judge you over your decisions and statements. I will disagree with you to the best of my knowledge and abilities. And I will hold you accountable if you are not able to live up to your image.

With that being said, I have something to say regarding your decision of nominating Usman Buzdar as Chief Minister of Punjab. I do not know him, not even remotely and I am sure I am not the only one in this boat and that is what I liked about this decision.

 I also liked the bit that this decision does not seem to be influenced by the rhetoric we all have been listening to for quite some time. I also like the fact that you were able to think beyond favorites and had the courage to take a bold decision such as this. I absolutely adore you for these qualities and that’s what I was sold on to begin with and I would never expect any less from you.

But there is something that really bothers me in this selection. I am really not flogged on the explanation you have given to appoint Usman Buzdar as PTI’s candidate for the Punjab Chief Minister post. You have told us that you are appointing him on the slot because he belongs to a very backward region assuming he would be able to relate with the deprived part of our society. With all due respect, Mr. Prime Minster I beg to differ here.

He is the son of a feudal lord. His immediate family is in government since 1988 in various capacities. He himself has been an office bearer as Tehsil Nazim in Pervez Musharaf’s era. He switched 3 parties in last 10 years. Not having electricity in his ancestral home does not mean that he can be trusted to understand the sufferings of a common man. There must be some other reason behind it and you should not have spoken about this as a justification behind your selection.

Another reason you gave is that his region of origin is backward to an extent that it stands without the basic facility of even a hospital. Again, whose fault is this? Buzdar’s clan was the ruling family of the area.

 A more plausible reason could have been that he built a hospital in his expanse or you could have simply taken us through his efforts in raising literacy rate from his constituency in his personal capacity or any other initiative he might have taken during his term as Tehsil Nazim. I would have been delighted to know about a list of achievements by Mr. Usman Buzdar in his defense, to deem him worthy of your selection.

I really wish you have not had to explain yourself in your subsequent twitter posts. I really wish you had been more careful over your communication and conveyed your message in a more convincing way in your initial video message to not give way to any kind of suspicion or confusion. 

For me and hundreds of thousand others watching that video, only these words that ‘you have taken due diligence about this gentleman and you think of him as the most suitable person for the post’ would have been reason enough to believe in what you are saying. You should not have clouded our minds with the thoughts I have shared above.

So what do you expect from me, one of your sincere supporter? And perhaps all of us who are in the same boat, disgruntled over the reasons you have given while trying to justify your selection of Punjab CM when you really did not need to, with questions at the back of our minds but an inability to raise them. Do you want us to not second judge you or would you rather encourage us to having our own opinion on the decisions you are going to take from now on? Like the previous government, now we have given you our votes, would you listen to none or only to the representatives you had previously selected for us in our constituency as a collective voice from that area or would still consider us worthy of an opinion. 

Would you like to keep a direct relationship with your voter or would sit behind countless layers of governance? Only time will tell. You have been our hero and we would very much like to keep it that way.