- See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil when party men are involved
When the PTI chief condemned the politicisation of bureaucracy by his predecessors many clapped their hands in approval. What one has seen happening during the last three months surpasses previous records of politically motivated transfers of government officials. Imran Khan has been told that PTI cannot maintain hold over Punjab without allowing MNAs and MPAs to have officers of their choice in the constituencies. The new norm is to penalise any civil servant who complains about PTI lawmakers meddling in official matters.
Imran Khan has condemned his opponents for setting up bank accounts in foreign countries and acquiring properties and businesses abroad. He has accused them of acting as kings. He exonerates important leaders of his party who indulge in similar practices. With the interior ministry directly under him Khan is supposed to be in full knowledge of his cabinet minister Azam Swati’s misdeeds but has refused to take any disciplinary action against him.
He is free to call his opponents thieves and dacoits even before anything is proved against them in a court of law. He loses his cool when accused of nepotism and that too not by his political rivals but by the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
He considers himself above all principles including those he had advocated fervently. The supreme end — in his case coming to power — justifies all means, fair or foul. Two years before coming to power it was criminal to grant permission to a Qatari prince to hunt tilor because ‘it was a rare species nearing extinction’. KP government was directed to put a ban on it, pronto, prince or no prince. In power now, it is alright for his Punjab government to issue special permits to Qataris for hunting the bird.
The king is a master of doublespeak. Punjab, he argues, needs a lower middle class CM from an under-developed area because he alone can understand the problems faced by the common man. But KP needs a millionaire from one of the more developed districts. Doesn’t a poorer and lesser developed province need a chief executive who has first-hand knowledge of poverty and social backwardness?