Finding to its dismay that the PM has lost his majority and is going to be ousted after a successful no-confidence move, the PTI government has decided to play foul.
Prime Minister Imran Khan was keen to immediately send National Assembly Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and JUI(F) Amir Fazlur Rehman to jail after declaring them traitors who had conspired to overthrow his government on the behest of the USA. He also wanted to foil the no-confidence move by collecting crowds outside the National Assembly to physically harm opposition lawmakers and deter them from casting votes on Sunday . After putting opposition leaders in jail Khan meditated creating an anti-US wave and riding it to win the elections.
The sycophants who had prepared the scheme were told by the government’s own legal team that opposition leaders’ arrest on the charge of being traitors would be absolutely illegal. A frustrated Interior Minister however continued to call the no-confidence move a “foreign conspiracy,”  accusing the opposition leaders of being a part of it and demanding that the government charge them for treason. Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, who was given the additional portfolio of Law for the purpose, got a petition presented in the Supreme Court asking the apex court to form a commission to investigate the so-called international conspiracy against the PM, meanwhile ordering the postponement of the no-confidence move till the completion of the commission’s task. The Supreme Court office has rejected the petition as ineligible.
The PTI government must not create a law and order situation on Sunday (today) to deter opposition lawmakers from exercising their right to vote on the no- trust move. While the PM has lost the opportunity to resign honourably, hopefully he would not delay calling the National Assembly session to choose a new leader of the House in case of the no-trust move being successful following the precedent he has set in Punjab.
Whatever the outcome of today’s proceedings in the National Assembly, there is a need on the part of the government to halt the ongoing demonstrations against the dissident MNAs in KP accompanied by incidents of the burning of American flags and effigies of President Joe Biden. An activity of the sort directed by the PM himself, as claimed by the KP chief minister, is highly irresponsible.
