Qadri plans ‘low-key’ politics as long as Imran is in the saddle

LAHORE: With the arch rivals (read Sharif brothers) of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Tahirul Qadri out of power, and his political cousin (Imran Khan) heading the government, the PAT plans to put its five-year-long politics of agitation on hold, at least as long as the PTI rules.

According to the party sources, this change of heart on the part of Mr Qadri has duly been conveyed to the PAT cadres and a “general council” meeting would soon be convened to incorporate the revised preferences into party policies and convince the workers of it.

“In fact, the council meeting was scheduled for Monday (yesterday) but postponed at the last moment as the Lahore High Court (LHC) rejected the party’s revision petition,” says an insider.

According to party circles, Mr Qadri thinks that with the Sharifs thrown out of power, his political objectives have been achieved.

The Sharif brothers earned his wrath following the Model Town incident in which the party lost 14 workers, while around 100 others were injured. Their removal from power was the party’s political objective.

The rest is now legal struggle in which the government is cooperating and the judiciary hearing the cases on a regular basis. “One of the victim’s daughters (Ms Bisma) met the chief justice twice recently and requested for quick justice and courts have started taking up cases and appeals,” he explains. This satisfied the party’s concerns regarding delay in justice.

Recently, the PTI government also withdrew all the accused police officials from field postings and provided an enabling environment for the delivery of justice.

“This explains the change of heart at the PAT level and the PTI should celebrate,” the party insider said.

The PAT made life difficult for the Sharifs for four out of five years of their rule. During this period, the party held a month-long sit-in at Islamabad, and big rallies at all provincial capitals.

In the second phase, called Qisas March, it again held around 10 rallies in the big cities of the country and finally culminated the effort with a rally on The Mall earlier this year.

The PAT remained a close ally of the PTI – which prompted some analysts to call them ‘political cousins’ – and both made life thorny for the PML-N during its rule by launching three different phases of nation-wide protests after a sit-in at Islamabad to avenge Model Town incident.

It may be mentioned here that the Model Town incident took place after the so-called London Plan, which the three allies – the PAT, the PTI and the PML-Q – hatched to remove the PML-N. The plan that was being consistently denied by all the three partners till a week ago, was conceded by the PAT secretary general Khurran Nawaz Gandapur recently during a show at a private television channel.

The Shahbaz government in Punjab over-reacted to what it called London Plan when it tried to remove security barriers around the residence of Mr Qadri to give a “tough message” to PAT chief. It led to resistance by the PAT workers and in the ensuing clash with police 14 people were killed and some 100 injured.

According to party spokesman Noorullah Siddiqui, the PAT chief would now be concentrating more on his “pending academic and research work, which has been ignored for long due to political engagements of doctor sahib”.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2018