Imran Khan spent the month of July holding public meetings in Punjab to support PTI nominees in by-elections. The rallies and public meetings continued even after the PTI had formed government in the province. During the several meetings held In August, the major demand was to hold early elections. The meetings continued despite harrowing reports of the disaster wreaked by rains and floods all over the country. There was annoyance in PTI ranks over the army failing to pressurize the federal government to resign and seek fresh mandate. This was expressed in anti-army tweets by PTI’s misled supporters. The arrest of some led to Shehbaz Gill’s irresponsible outburst.
While provincial government’s supported by Federal administration and armed forces were engaged in dealing with the colossal humanitarian crisis, Imran Khan remained fixated on early elections putting up the demand in half a dozen public meetings held in Punjab and KP in August. It was quite belatedly that the reality dawned on him that with over half the country under water there was no possibility of early elections. Required to appear in a number of cases before courts, Election Commission of Pakistan and FIA, Imran Khan threatened to react dangerously like a cornered tiger. In his latest speeches he mentioned Khomeini’s bloody revolution as an alternative if elections were not held soon, grudgingly extending the time limit to soon after the end of rains and floods.
In an act of sheer indiscretion Imran Khan took the issue of the appointment of the new COAS at Faisalabad public meeting. As he put it if a “strong and patriotic army chief” came, Zardari and Sharif would be questioned about their loot, implying that attitude towards IK’s political opponents would determine the patriotism or otherwise of the next army chief.
Imran Khan has finally agreed to visit the flood devastated Sindh. It is not yet clear if he would visit a number of devastated areas, mobilize teams of PTI youth to undertake relief work and announce a major amount of funds for the affected population of Sindh. Khan has also announced another telethon on Sunday. There is no doubt about the PTI chief’s ability to collect funds. What is problematic however is his secretiveness regarding the funds spending, as the FIA queries indicate.
