Pakistan - Why another dharna?

Those who thought Imran Khan would be at the beach Acapulco by now were sadly mistaken. He is going nowhere; he stays put at Banigala, preparing to hold what his party calls a dharna convention at the D-Chowk in front of Parliament House later this week. "If the government failed to set up the judicial commission till January 18 we would take to the streets and it would be impossible for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to move forward," says Imran Khan. We don't know what he means by making it impossible for the prime minister 'to move forward', because something like had not happened even when he held the ground by spending days and nights in a container for almost three months in front of the parliament. The prime minister carried on with his routine, even undertook visits abroad. If the dharna really hurt anybody it was the people of Pakistan. If the scheduled visit of Chinese president could not materialise the net loser were Pakistan and its people. If the government employees could not reach their offices in the Main Secretariat it was the public who suffered because the files had stopped moving. Litigants failed to reach the apex court; business activity in the Capital slowed down and foreigners opted to leave the city. One wonders if another spell of dharna would make impossible for Nawaz Sharif to move forward. One would expect the PTI leadership to rethink its convention-dharna plan - the time-honoured democratic practice of opposing the government by raising voice from the other side of the aisle in assemblies is certainly a better option. 

Pakistan is faced with an existential threat; its territorial sovereignty is under attack both from within and without as the enemy is on the rampage. But the power-seekers are dancing on the broken glass. How is it that none in the PTI is courageous enough to tell the party boss that it's not the time for dharna of any kind - if this failed to bring down the government last year there is no plausible reason for it to succeed now. It would certainly negatively impact the image of the political elite, cause frustration among general public and above all paint Imran Khan as Cervantes's Don Quixote who reads so many chivalric novels that he loses his sanity. And no less certainly the team Nawaz Sharif's shifting stand on judicial commission and its reluctance to vote verification tends to bereft the government of its democratic credentials.