Majority of the political parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa these days seems to have no plan of activities to interact with public and raise voice for their common good, as they have focused all their attention on saving the parliament and Constitution while opposing the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek’s prolonged sit-in protests in Islamabad.

Since the protest marches and sit-ins started about a month ago the political parties have abandoned the routine activities and their target is Imran Khan and Dr Tahirul Qadri. Of them, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl seems to be the most active, missing no chance of criticism of the protesters, particularly PTI.

There may be several reasons for the JUI-F’s opposition to PTI and its outright loyalty to Nawaz-led government, but the obvious one is its being the coalition partner of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the federal government.

JUI-F organised a big protest meeting of its workers on Aug 31 to express solidarity with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and then held an ‘all-party conference’ on Sept 6 in Peshawar where leaders of various political parties focused their speeches on the protest sit-ins in Islamabad. However, PTI leaders were not invited to the conference and the joint statement issued on the occasion was also against the protest marches and their participants.

Sometime it seems as if the leaders of JUI-F and PTI have some personal enmity when they use derogatory words against each others, which could be avoided.

Awami National Party is also very critical of PTI and its President Asfandyar Wali Khan in his speeches usually comes down hard on Imran Khan. Speaking at a recent workers convention in Charsadda, he said, “No one’s father can force Nawaz Sharif to resign”.

ANP’s central spokesman Senator Zahid Khan’s media remarks show as if all the demands of protesters are wrong and all the problems will be solved if parliament completed its tenure.

Similar is the situation with Qaumi Watan Party as its leaders usually speak to media on regular basis, but the ideas they discuss are the same about Pakhtun rights, sense of deprivation among people and woes of internally displaced persons. The party should devise a concrete strategy to present a formula for solution to such longstanding problems. However, the QWP leaders have also been criticising the federal government for continuously ignoring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in developmental schemes.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa PML-N seems to be least interested in raising voice against the marchers and the provincial government because the duty is being done by rest of the parties. PML-N held the only protest rally a few days ago outside Peshawar Press Club and urged Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and his cabinet members to stop dancing in the sit-ins and give attention to their duty to serve people of the province.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s provincial president Khanzada Khan sometimes issues statements against Imran and Qadri, but he follows the policy of his central leaders for the purpose. For the past one week or so he has not issued any statement to media and the reason is perhaps ‘parting ways’ of his spokesman, Fahim Khattak. Mr Khattak in his messages to mediapersons said that he was going to say goodbye to PPP and join a religious party.

People in general expect all the political parties to set their priorities in the public interest. In the prevailing situation, it seems that all the public interest issues have been put on the backburner. The volleys of allegations have made lives of the unconcerned people miserable, and now the viewers even avoid switching on the news channels.

During a chat with some apolitical citizens they suggested that the politicians ought to come closer to each others, find out the flaws in present democratic system and propose reforms to bring an end to corruption, injustices, lawlessness, exploitation, misuse of official powers, poverty, unemployment, price hike and energy crisis to provide relief to masses.

They said that the poor just wanted to spend life with honour by availing of all the required facilities at one’s doorsteps and it was the duty of a welfare state to fulfill the needs. People belonging to different segments of society in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been facing multiple problems but none of the party looks serious to focus on solution of the issues.

The active political workers may like the routine long speeches, harsh criticism, allegations and debates on TV channels, but common people belonging to low income group need only practical steps for solution of their problems pertaining to health, shelter, education, employment, etc.

The provincial government will certainly reap what it sows, but the rival political parties should also play their role, mainly when they have cordial relations with the federal government, to bring some mega projects to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and mould public opinion through development.

Apart from the criticism of rival political parties the PTI leaders should also hold internal accountability and avoid egoism. The PTI leadership must keep it in mind that continuous absence of the chief minister and his cabinet members from their offices is very harmful to the province and the party itself.

There is nothing like waderaism, sardarism, etc, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and thus no party or candidate can claim to win the elections all the times. Majority of the people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa feel free to exercise their right of secret ballot during elections and they have no such habit to waste time by testing elected representatives consecutively. The history shows that political heavyweights have also lost elections in different districts whenever they lost confidence of their voters.

No one can claim to be always popular due to their family background because the people have become politically so aware that only services and dedication can help maintain anyone’s popularity to some extent.

PTI nominees have got major success in the last general elections and most of the former lawmakers in the previous tenures have faced thrashing defeat, but it is not necessary that PTI candidates will emerge successful in future too. They will have to get public confidence for the purpose.

Now it is challenging situation for the rulers, also including Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan, to maintain their political stature intact in respective areas. They will have to prove themselves as the real ‘khadim’ (servants) of public otherwise their fate will be no different from that of other defeated politicians.

Published in Dawn, September 14th , 2014