AS saner voices from across the country are emphasizing the need for bringing the political temperature down, Peshawar rally of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) conveyed an impression that the opposition was in an upbeat mood and has no intention of offering any relief to the Government as for as its pressure tactics are concerned. Though Mian Nawaz Sharif and Vice President of PML(N) Maryam Nawaz could not address the rally due to death of Shamim Akhtar, mother of Sharifs, in London but PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and PDM’s chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman tried to maintain the tempo by launching frontal attacks on the Government on different accounts.
There would be nothing wrong in the mass contact movement of the opposition if the objective was to criticize those policies of the Government, which the opposition believes are hurting the interests of the people and making their lives hard. It is, indeed, job and responsibility of the opposition to keep a strict vigil on the performance of the elected government and sensitize people if it goes wrong. In this backdrop, raising of issues like non-stop price-hike especially those of food items, shortage of commodities, repeated increase in rates of electricity and gas, woes of the citizens due to crippling shortage of gas with the onset of winter, corruption, perceived targeting of the opposition in the name of accountability, BRT project and rights of people of erstwhile tribal areas that have been merged with the KP, retrenchments in government departments and growing unemployment in the country. These are main issues and reasons that attract people to public meetings and rallies of the opposition as so far no effective strategy seems to be in place to address these problems. However, the stated objective of the protest campaign by the opposition was to bring down an elected government much before completion of its constitutionally mandated tenure, which is not acceptable to all those who want continuity and stability in the country. While Bilawal vowed an “end” to the incumbent government with January as its “last month in power”, Maulana Fazlur Rehman termed retreat from the battlefield as ‘Gunah-e-Kabira’ (major sin), indicating that so far the opposition was firm in its plans to launch a long march towards Islamabad in January 2021. Regrettably, the opposition has also rejected offer of talks made by Prime Minister Imran Khan on the issue of electoral reforms, apparently due to lack of a conducive environment for the purpose. In fact, there is an impression that some people in the ruling party are unnecessarily raising tension with the opposition knowing fully well that the atmosphere of confrontation was more harmful for the government than the opposition. Sanity should prevail; both sides must make conscientious efforts to lower temperature and agree on an agenda for talks.
