ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf is launching its much-awaited long march from Oct 28 (Friday) from Lahore’s Liberty Chowk.
It is understood that millions of rupees are required on daily basis to fulfill the basic needs of the long-march comprising thousands of people. This time, who is going to finance this political move which involves thousands of people’s transportation, their meals, financing, and many nights stay on or around roads, etc.
According to the long-march schedule, announced by the PTI, the participants of the march will remain on roads till Nov 4. Notably, Nov 4 is the deadline to enter Islamabad and how many days the marchers will have to stay in the capital city of Pakistan, it is yet not clear.
It is also very interesting that the PTI will spend the first day of its march (Oct 28) in Lahore and what would be the logic behind this day-long stay in one city _ Lahore. In fact, Imran Khan wants the participation of a maximum number of the PTI leaders, voters, and supporters and one-day stay in Lahore will enable Khan and his close leaders to attract a fair number of the participants because the political strength and integrity of PTI and IK is at stake as far as this long-march is concerned.
Moreover, what is the logic of the PTI chairman and other decision-makers of the party to stay on roads, including GT Road _ in the jurisdiction of the Punjab government being run by PTI-PML(Q) coalition _ for eight consecutive days before reaching Islamabad? This question is also bothering too many people.
It is clear that from Oct 28 to Nov 4 (eight days), a majority of the long-march participants will remain on roads. The number of the participants will be in thousands but, at this time, it would be premature to guestimate the possible size of the marchers of the PTI.
As far as the financing of the march is concerned, during the PML(N) government, when Nawaz Sharif was the Prime Minister, a leading real estate tycoon was the leading financer of the PTI ‘dharna’ in Islamabad at D-Chowk along with Allama Tahir-ul-Qadir, founder of Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT).
And when the PTI came to power, Khan’s party rewarded the same property tycoon by returning his black-money which was confiscated by the United Kingdom. The UK government returned that black money to the PTI government and the Imran Khan-led government handed over that money with full honesty to the real estate tycoon instead of confiscating that money.
The other famous AMTs of Imran Khan _ at that time were Jahangir Khan Tareen, AKD and Aleem Khan, etc. As most of the ATMs of Imran Khan have either left the party or dumped by Khan when he was the prime minister, now a crucial question which arises in our minds is that “who is going to finance” PTI’s long march this time? Also, last time Lt-General Zaheerul-Islam, DG ISI too tacitly supported PTI’s dharna, but that hidden support is not available at this time and the PTI people will have to do everything on their own and at their own risk.
This analytical news will be further updated with more input from knowledgeable circles.
