Imran’s day of reckoning, cards stacked up against his govt

With the electoral numbers clearly not on his side, the retired cricketer may leave the house after his speech and submit his resignation to the President.

Published on: Apr 3, 2022, 09:27:06 IST

By Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

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With Pakistan National Assembly set to take up the combined Opposition’s no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan Niazi today, the embattled cricketer has changed tactics and decided to be present in the House with PTI members, who are still with him, during the debate in the run-up to voting.

Royal snub : Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Jawed Bajwa snubbed Prime MInister Khan on Saturday by coming down heavily on Russia for invasion of Ukraine and reiterating Islamabad's close relationship with Washington.

This means PM Niazi will take the high road one more time in the National Assembly by taking potshots at his political rivals, US "conspirators" and try to come out as the sole saviour of Pakistan. The most likely scenario will be that PM Niazi will use the Assembly podium to forcefully put down the Opposition with a speech to prepare the ground for the next general elections. With the electoral numbers clearly not on his side, the retired cricketer may leave the house after his speech and submit his resignation to the President. This move will ensure that the PM is not humiliated by electoral numbers stacked up against him.

Although Niazi on Saturday had asked the youth at large to agitate against the opposition members, whom he has labelled as traitors, outside the Assembly, and against the PTI turncoats outside their houses, the sudden change to attending the no-confidence debate could have been due to weak public response or stern advice from the Pakistan Army on fueling public sentiment towards violence on streets of Islamabad and Lahore.

While the Pak PM thinks that the masses at large and a section within Pak Army would be swayed by his anti-US tirade, such fears were dismissed by none other than the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Jawed Bajwa. Speaking at a public forum on Saturday, Gen Bajwa countered Niazi's rhetoric by castigating Russia for invading Ukraine and calling the US a close ally of Pakistan. To make matters worse for Niazi, Gen Bajwa virtually snubbed the PM by offering to peacefully discuss all outstanding disputes with India and was satisfied by the LoC ceasefire holding between the two archrivals for the past one year. By keeping the Army out of the political play in Pakistan, Gen Bajwa has maintained the dignity and decorum of the GHQ without soiling the Khakhi in a political cesspool.

With PM Niazi raving and ranting before the public since March 27, nothing new is expected from the cricketer except the use of colourful language to blast the Opposition and their imaginary co-conspirators in Washington.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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