Rock, Paper, Scissors!

For instance, his immediate response against the Covid-19 pandemic was to declare ‘war against coronavirus’ and he vowed in public to fight tooth and nail with the deadly disease by coining a catchy slogan ‘corona se darna nahi larna hai.’ But in practical terms, his Covid-19 strategy is similar to a children’s game ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors.’ He is still toying with the ideas of ‘complete lockdown’ and ‘smart lockdown’ at the expense of too many deaths. The number is still counting.

He feared that in case of a continued lockdown, the lot of daily-wagers would die of starvation. Ironically, more than 5,000 people in Pakistan had died due to Covid-19 until the middle of July, but none had reportedly died because of hunger.

Was it a matter of his inflated ego that stopped th Prime Minister from visiting the crash site of the PIA plane in Karachi, or even meeting the families of the deceased? Unfortunately, when it comes to action, Imran Khan is always the first person who leaves his imaginary ‘Riyasat-e-Madina’ model in tatters.

With his tall claims and pipe-dreams, Imran Khan often reminds one of the popular political slogans used in the sub-continent. These called for the making of a separate nation-state for the Muslims that now exists in the shape of Pakistan. Contrary to all promises and expectations, the hard-fought country has miserably failed to fulfill the promises its forefathers had made to the Muslim minority of India, who were innocently lured in the name of Islam and soon ended up in a land of contradictions and corruption in place of the promised ‘Land of the Pure’.

As shown by the then feudal-dominated All Indian Muslim League and now the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf led by Imran Khan, how easy it is to exploit public sentiment by resorting to false promises and fraudulent statements and that too in the name of religion and public welfare.

On the administrative side too, Imran Khan is faring badly. Both in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, led by rubber-stamp chief ministers, the work on many mega projects has yet to kick off, while various development programmes have been in a state of limbo owing to the government’s inability to complete and assiduously approve the assessment tasks on time. Once again, Imran Khan’s magnified ego does not allow him to nominate capable people for key posts, people who could run government affairs independently and without dragging the PM in every matter.

As for the people of Karachi, the likes of MNAs such as Aamir Liaquat, Faisal Vawda and Alamgir Khan, who were meticulously chosen by the all-knowing Imran Khan because of their political stuntmanship, have miserably failed to establish any credentials in terms of good governance. From the sugar scandal to the petroleum scandal, Prime Minister Imran Khan should be the first to be blamed, since his faulty decision-making, delayed crisis management as well as his inconsistent and immature policy-making, if any, is pushing the country well behind its growth potential.

In hindsight, it appears that everything is taking place as per the script written by the powers that be. The mafias that rule the rulers are having a field day in the present government setup, while the PTI’s claim that it does not have any place for corrupt politicians looks lie dream. Political point-scoring is at its peak and the masses are being duped, left, right and centre. They would soon be making a beeline to polling stations to vote for their favourite leader and it will again be their handsome prime minister.