Imran leads soiled language contest

ISLAMABAD: Trading of vitriolic allegations during the election campaign is not something uncommon but this time the war of words has gone overboard with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan emptying his arsenal first, condemning the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to retaliate.
Resort to unheard of soiled language also reflects the desperation and frustration among its users. Usually, prospective losers always prefer foul jargons, muddying the political arena.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has no express restrictions, prohibiting nonsensical talk. Even if certain laws prescribe decency and decorum in the poll campaign, they are hardly ever invoked to punish the violators. This encourages them to have a battle royal.
Thursday was perhaps the worst day as far as the use of vicious and horrid lingo was concerned. It is anybody’s guess how far this unique name-calling will produce dividends for their users on the polling day. It was not the first time that Imran Khan took the lead in hurling unsubstantiated, wild charges on the Sharif brothers. During his 126-day sit-in he repeated for umpteen times his accusations against a number of prominent politicians and state institutions and private establishments but never bothered to prove them at any appropriate forum. He also made not even a slight mention of all of these allegations when the 3-member judicial commission heard his poll rigging claims and dismissed them as totally irrelevant and baseless.
His accusation that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is the most corrupt ruler of Pakistan, more than Asif Ali Zardari, belied his own previous claim about the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief that he had reiterated for a number of times. Imran Khan said the Nawaz Sharif government has broken all previous records of corruption and even left Zardari behind in corrupt practices. This charge also stunned many circles including political and other, which are not sympathetic to the premier.
Another scandalous accusation of the PTI chairman was that the premier’s family earned $60 million by exporting sugar to India and was planning to set up two sugar mills in southern Punjab against an order of the Lahore High Court (LHC).
This is not something that can be concealed from the public view and can be easily confirmed from the official record. If it is verified, the Sharif family will be squarely held guilty otherwise the contradiction of the prime minister’s office is unassailable.
Accusations of any nature and type are not unexpected from Imran Khan because he firmly believes that he can politically thrive by following this trajectory.
However, Information Minister Senator Pervez Rashid’s reaction to the exceptional diatribe was also overboard, which was against his temperament as he has the ability to couch even his severe attack in restrained language.
He dubbed Imran Khan as a thief, a traitor, a corrupt person and an agent of Pakistan’s enemies, who received funds from the Jewish and Hindu lobbies to attack parliament and used this money to try to topple an elected government last year by staging a sit-in and to sabotage the visit of the Chinese president to Pakistan. Under the law, no political party can raise funds from abroad or foreigners while the PTI chief got money from foreign firms whose owners were Jews, Hindus and Sikhs, he stated.
“Imran Khan should declare on oath that he had not received funds from abroad,” he said and asked the PTI chairman to take him to a court of law if what he said was wrong and that Imran Khan was not an agent of Pakistan’s enemies. He also released some documents to explain his contention that the PTI chief grossly misused party funds.
Already, a former PTI leader Akbar S Babar’s petition relating to the alleged embezzlement of party funds that it got from the US has been accepted by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for regular hearing. The ECP stated that it has the powers to look into the financial affairs of the political parties.