ISLAMABAD:
As the PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Friday waged a war against Geo TV and
the Jang Group that are already under fire from the ‘patriotic’ forces,
the argument he advanced to justify the boycott does not hold any ground
and rather cast doubts on his integrity.
His
flip-flop in the post-Hamid Mir attack testifies that he has either been
surrounded by confusion or by the ‘angels’, thus vindicating his friend
Ch Nisar who had credited now-former ISI chief Lt Gen (retd) Pasha for
the sudden rise of the PTI in 2011.
Initially, Imran
demanded apology from Geo TV for ‘its baseless vilification of the
Pakistan Army and ISI.” A new reality dawned on him later on. He found
out the network’s involvement in the election rigging while admitting he
did not have any evidence; nevertheless, asked for apology on this
ground and his party would boycott unless the needful was done.
He
was wrong before; he is wrong again. I have a few questions for him
followed by the answers.Does he really believe that alleging a spy chief
for a murderous attempt is tantamount to the vilification of the entire
agency? If the answer is in affirmative then the PTI chief had set this
precedent in 2007 and must tender apology for doing so before demanding
from others.
On June 15, 2007, the PTI Secretary General,
Air Marshal (R) Zulfiqar held a press conference (details can still be
accessed at PTI’s official website). “Intelligence agencies have devised
a plan to kill Imran Khan,” he told media and said that the FIR would
be registered against the agencies’ chiefs together with President
Pervez Musharraf and MQM chief Altaf Hussain “in case of any attack.”
One
wonders that if the PTI chief had different standard for himself and
anybody else feeling threatened from the agencies? He should have
publicly submitted apology before advising demanding this from others.
Likewise,
he misquoted former Army Chief Gen (R) Ashfaq Parvez Kayani about the
briefing he gave during All Parties Conference (APC) meeting about
terrorism and military operation in Federally Administered Tribal Area
(Fata). It was a breach of trust to publicise (correctly or incorrectly)
a secret shared with top leaders during an in camera briefing to begin
with. Also the fact remains that the government termed it wrong
attribution to the former army chief, clarifying what Kayani had exactly
said. The Senate also demanded of the PTI chief to take back his words,
but he remained adamant. He did not admit his mistake at any point;
however, he never spared a chance to preach others.
His
allegations of rigging don’t make any sense either. While indicting Geo
TV on this ground and announcing boycott till the apology is tendered,
the PTI chairman admitted that he did not have any proof to state about
its involvement.
The foundation of his argument about
rigging rested on the airing of victory speech of Mian Nawaz Sharif by
Geo TV. This ‘offered’ him strong evidence about its involvement.
Regardless the merit of his allegations, this established the fact that
he is an avid watcher of Geo TV. Had he been watching other channels by
that time, he would have found out that this speech was not exclusively
being run by Geo TV.
Supposing that he was watching Geo TV
only, why did he fail to notice the appearance of his top lieutenant,
Asad Umar, in Kamran Khan Show short after the PML-N leader’s victory
speech? Not only he had congratulated Sharif brothers on the victory; he
had also disclosed PTI’s win in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Going by Imran
Khan’s logic, did PTI rig the elections in KP? If not, how did the
party’s top campaign manager Asad Umar come to know about the victory in
KP?
Geo TV had also been alleged of giving more
projection to the PML-N during election campaign. This was in contrast
with the complaint lodged by Ishaq Dar of the PML-N to the Election
Commission of Pakistan (ECP) against the unfair coverage of Geo TV that,
the PML-N thought, was heavily biased in favour of PTI. Even many
journalists affiliated with the eJang Group noticed disproportionate
coverage to the PTI by Geo TV. The PTI instead of being thankful has
turned against the same network.
As the election campaign
was in the full swing, different TV anchors were predicting the win of
PTI. As a journalist, I was curious as to why those anchors were so
convinced about the likely victory of the PTI. Upon inquiry, a couple of
them said that Imran Khan had given in writing to many anchors that PTI
would grab 125 national assembly seats. One wonders how did the PTI
chief know and what made him so confident? I would also be grateful to
the anchors who were receiving calls from the angels updating them about
the election situation and that PTI was going to win with huge margin.
As they would use different code names for different politicians, one of
them was ‘doctor’. Will any anchor let the public know who was named as
‘doctor’?
