It will not be wrong to say that our people are fed up with politics of long marches as these only disrupt their routine lives and business activities.
Every now and then any party comes up with its own plan to march towards the federal capital against sitting government.
Most recently, when PPP and PML (N) were in the opposition they held marches and now Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) which has been ousted from power through a vote of no confidence in Parliament has once again given a call for another long march.
In a video message on Saturday, former PM Imran Khan announced a rough timeframe for his planned long march, issuing a call for the last week of May without mentioning exact date.
He predicted that the march to Islamabad would be the biggest in Pakistan’s history and a ‘sea of people’ would flood the city.
There is no denying that former PM has held mammoth gatherings most recently in Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore and acceptability of his narrative is such that he definitely can manage to pull a sizeable crowd in the capital as well.
Though no confidence motion by the opposition is a constitutional and democratic way to oust a sitting government yet we had opposed this move, sensing this will only stoke political instability in the country.
Now unfortunately polarisation has reached a dangerous level and unruly scenes are being witnessed in open places as well as mosques.
In our view, there is no other solution but to hold general elections in coming months.
The parties in coalition government should invite PTI leadership for a dialogue and try to persuade it to take back the call of long march, as it will only further increase political temperature that is not good for the country.
Matters need to be resolved on table of negotiations with collective wisdom and consensus.
The coalition government has already invited PTI to participate in the working of committee of electoral reforms so that next general elections are held in transparent and orderly manner.
We sincerely hope that PTI would shun path of confrontation in the larger interest of country and democracy.
