OCCASIONALLY, two plus two can equal five. Or, in the world of the PTI, 35 minus 35 can equal 71. And that’s why it is possible, occasionally, in the PTI world again, for an apology to be apologised for. For the few who care to remember and the even fewer who grasped the faux-logic, there is the peculiar tale of 35 punctures. Allegedly, once upon a time, two years ago, the PTI believed it was going to give the PML-N a real scare in Punjab. Some in the PTI even believed the party would trounce the PML-N in elections. Then, on election night, when it turned out the trouncing was not done to the PML-N, but by the PML-N, a legend was born: 35 punctures. Somehow, the alleged architect-in-chief, then caretaker chief minister Najam Sethi, decided to gloat about his achievement in scuttling 35 victories of the PTI to the chief beneficiary and incoming prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, over the telephone. Somehow, the alleged conversation was allegedly recorded. And somehow — the alleged chain of conversation would put a game of Chinese whispers to shame — the PTI learned of the Sethi-Sharif conversation and so was born the legend that the PTI obsessed over.

Now, having embarrassingly failed to even bring up the issue of 35 punctures before the judicial commission, Imran Khan has once again stunned the PTI’s critics. The PTI didn’t bring up 35 punctures because it was actually 71 punctures, Mr Khan claimed on Sunday. Double the punctures should mean double the evidence, but in at least one way the PTI has been consistent with the laws of mathematics. Since originally zero evidence was provided, doubling that zero would also mean zero evidence — which is exactly what Mr Khan or the PTI has provided. But politics is nothing if not for the brave, or perhaps just the foolhardy. Except no one in the PTI would like to question 71 punctures. After all, Arif Alvi bravely tried to own up to being wrong about 35 punctures and look what trouble that got him in.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2015

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