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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Lahore sit-in to be quite different from Islamabad’s

By Tariq Butt
January 17, 2018

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Allama Tahirul Qadri will rub shoulders with each other in the Lahore protest against their old common nemeses – the Sharif brothers – after more than three years.

The exact contours and shape their present cooperation, aimed at targeting the Sharifs, will take, are yet unknown. But what is clear is that they cherish to go for the great kill and aspire to create a situation more risky and dangerous than that of the 2014 sit-ins at the D-Chowk in which it becomes well neigh impossible for the Punjab government to remain in place.

In the past and even during the sit-ins, the enthusiasm for collaboration between Imran Khan and Qadri continued to blow hot and cold for the simple reason that everyone of them wanted to take full credit for the agitation considering himself as the dominant, bigger player. The PAT chief stayed away, mostly in Canada, from a number of protests including the abortive lockdown of the federal capital that Imran Khan sponsored after the 2014 agitation.

Although the objective of the instant protest is the same old – get Sharifs - at all costs, yet there are certain dissimilarities compared to the 2014 show. Among Sharifs’ political foes, the anger and venom that Imran Khan and Qadri have against them is as severe as it has always been and it has kept raging with every passing day.

Previously, they had tried to feign and make some people believe that they had undertaken independent ventures by embarking upon the long marches from Lahore to Islamabad almost at the same time. They had claimed that they were free agents and genuinely believed in their struggle against the Sharifs, but it transpired to all and sundry that this was just a charade. They acted on the script given to them to implement, and they struggled hard to do the assigned duty.

This time, the main show is being hosted and organised by Qadri, and Imran Khan is just a contributor. The credit or discredit for efficacy or otherwise of the event will be mainly pocketed by the PAT chief. The PTI chairman can argue in case of unsatisfactory attendance at the protest that he had not organised it and had left it to Qadri.

When they had reached Islamabad in August 2014, they had camped for some days at different points to finally storm the D-Chowk together. Even at this venue, their crowds maintained their separate identities, but all this was just sham. While Imran Khan’s followers were not permanently present here, Qadri’s activists remained camped at the same place throughout the protest. The same will be repeated in Lahore if the public meeting was converted into a sit-in to last.

In Islamabad, the PTI and PAT, though camped at a stone’s throw away, jointly attacked the key national installations like the Pakistan Television Headquarters, Parliament building etc., and beat police personnel.

However, the finale was disastrous for both Imran Khan and Qadri. The PAT, exhausted and fatigued and demoralised for failing to achieve the desired results and having run out of funds, had to race away from the D-Chowk first before the PTI did so. After the departure of the PAT workers, the PTI’s protest became orphaned for having been left with no audience whatever to hear Imran Khan’s daily addresses. With the presence of Qadri’s workers, the PTI chairman had found the readymade gathering present at the venue all the time.

Ultimately, Imran Khan had no option but to take away his container that was the only permanent article left at the D-Chowk with no audience. He was already pondering over abandoning the protest that the Army Public School Peshawar massacre happened. He took it as a pretext to call off his longest 126-day sit-in.

The 2014 agitation had made the lives of citizens of Islamabad miserable. Now, the people of Lahore will suffer and taste the hardships even a day before the show. Earlier, Imran Khan and Qadri had kept their collaboration under the wraps for some time. However, it eventually stood exposed when everyone knew that there were no two independent protests. It is possible that this time they have also kept their actual plan secret.

Previously, they had firmed up their strategy, known as the London plan, abroad. This time, they met in Lahore a few weeks back when Imran Khan called on Qadri in the wake of release of the Najafi report into the Model Town incident. The PTI chief had another session with him some days ago.

A major dissimilarity is that last time Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief Asif Ali Zardari, who was present in 2014, and other parliamentary forces had joined hands in denouncing and failing the sit-ins, dubbing them a conspiracy to sabotage the democratic order. Except the PPP, all other parliamentary parties hold the same view. But now Zardari stands with Qadri.

The last sit-ins were organised when the general elections had been held over a year back. At the time, the governments had just started their tenures. Now, the parliamentary polls are only four months away, and the political parties, which see some electoral prospects, are preparing for the grand exercise. Even by becoming part of the Lahore protest, they are eying the upcoming election.