Imran Khan managed to collect a fairly sizeable crowd which was however ludicrously smaller than the promised gathering of one million. Khan’s use of religious terminology was exposed when one of the party’s widely known figures failed to correctly perform the “azaan,” leading to protests from the crowd.
Imran Khan showed no trump card at the public gathering that he had claimed he possessed. He presented no proof of the alleged foreign funded conspiracy that he claimed was behind his political troubles other than a folded piece of paper that he waived for a moment only to put it back in his pocket. How come the country’s security agencies which Khan once claimed were the world’s best and Pakistan’s first line of defence had no knowledge of the conspiracy? Had Imran Khan possessed any solid evidence of an international plot to politically destabilize the country, the best way for him would have been to take the matter to Parliament and expose those involved. It appears that the claim was fake like Khan’s earlier oft-repeated statement regarding “35 punctures” that he later conceded was no more than a ‘political statement,’ in other words a political gimmick.
An appeal to the crowds indicated that Imran Khan had lost hope of winning the battle for survival in the NA. Attempts to remain in power have led Imran Khan to sacrifice Punjab CM Buzdar and offer another ministry to MQM. The opposition has meanwhile won over four BAP, one PML-Q and another Balochistan MNA. The MQM has yet to decide its future. If the 14 PTI dissidents resign or are disqualified for life, Imran Khan will be short of over a dozen voters. The no-confidence move has been presented in NA. The NA Speaker is required to hold voting within seven days. Even if the PM manages to wait out the crisis, which seems quite difficult, he would emerge as a much weaker PM with a minority government.
