Dose of his own medicine
The way PML-N has tied Imran Khan in legal knots it would seem the ruling party has taken a leaf out of the PTI chief’s own favourite book. Parliament was never the preferred playground for our democracy-loving politicians. But, of late, their wrangling has moved from the streets and TV screens to spill all over the honourable courts as well. And perhaps initially it seemed in good taste – independent judiciary stepping in to preserve the sanctity of democracy – but it’s clearly gone too far now. The courts, already burdened by decades of backlog, etc, are just not the right platform to fight out political mini-battles.
And, like a few other trends, the PTI chief must take the credit for making this one fashionable as well. With court orders raining down on him, it will be interesting to see how he postures now that he’s on the other side. First there’s Shahbaz Sharif’s Rs10b defamation notice. So PML-N’s sticking to its guns. And since, for all intents and purposes, Imran is also, this one’s unlikely to fizzle out with a quiet apology. Then there’s Hanif Abbasi’s petition – seeking Imran’s disqualification and stirring quite a storm about his possession of the Bani Gala luxury estate and just how he acquired it. Imran will have to be more convincing, clearly, than his previous argument.
The CDA’s notice regarding the illegality of his estate, and the ECP’s ‘last chance’ regarding the foreign funding hearing, might not have originated from the PML-N, but naturally find ample space in the N-league’s observations. Far from introducing a manner of sanity in the country’s politics, washing all this dirty linen in the courts has only complicated things further. Should we, much like the courts, now expect other, smaller parties to leverage this precedent as well? Imran may just have been served a dose of his own medicine, but this episode should finally make politicians realise that the stage for such exchange is parliament; something both the government and opposition just fail to understand.