When Prime Minister Imran Khan came to Faisalabad to inaugurate the Naya Pakistan National Health Card, he was expected to underline the importance of the scheme and respond to some of the relevant questions being raised about it. While the National Health Card has undeniably some merits, it fails to address the problems of millions of people who cannot but costly medicines for common ailments like cough, malaria, typhoid or life-threatening diseases like blood pressure, sugar, and kidney-related ailments. The PM could have even highlighted what he considers to be the achievements of the PTI government. Instead he turned his guns on the opposition repeating almost compulsively epithets like ‘thieves’ and ‘dacoits’ which were used 18 times in a single address. This does not go well with the status of the chief executive of the country who is supposed to choose vocabulary that suits the dignity of his office. This would lead his critics to claim that Imran Khan had little to show as achievement and therefore concentrated on attacking the opposition leaders . Mr Khan claimed that PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari was running from pillar to post to buy loyalties of politicians with the nation’s looted money. He described PML(N) President Shehbaz Sharif’s recent speeches in the National Assembly “a job application” to achieve the combined objective of evading accountability and jail term.
The speech led to a tit-for-tat response from the spokespersons of the PPP and PML(N) who maintained that the PM was scared of the no-confidence motion being brought to Parliament against him and the long marches the oppositions parties are preparing for. Paying Mr Khan back in the same coin they accused the “Imran mafia “of looting the people and the national exchequer with both hands, leveled charges of embezzlement in charity funds and the PM’s involvement in mega-corruption scams. The charges and counter charges are highly regrettable as they will further poison the political environment.
When political leaders who are supposed to show maturity indulge in allegations and counter-allegations of the sort, there is a likelihood of their immature followers going much further. As the elections draw near, the rivalries could turn into enmities. Both the ruling party and the opposition have to ponder over the possible consequences of their irresponsible utterances.
