THERE are so many opportunities so frequently for Imran Khan-bashers to have fun at his expense. However, Okara on Wednesday found him to be in his most generous mood. Perhaps influenced by the presence of ex-PPP hope Ashraf Sohna, it was here that the kaptaan offered his most dangerous exposé of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In what would rank as the ultimate insult a politician could wish for another, the PTI chief said the prime minister was even worse than former president Asif Ali Zardari.

There might have been a context to the taunt. It could well have meant to pinpoint a specific blunder that Mr Khan thought his arch rival was guilty of. Still, an allusion to the Zardarian innocence in comparison to Mr Sharif’s failure to pay taxes or his alleged greed generally was apparently sound enough proof for pro-PML-N (sections of the) press to flash. This was not proof of a frustrated fortune-seeker retracing his steps helter-skelter. This was a starry-eyed wayfarer all at sea — a few by-elections, particularly one in Lahore, getting the most incredible thoughts out of Mr Khan, even by his own standards.

It was — it still is — that kind of an election that extracts so many surprising old and new sides to the contestants — the sight of a PPP candidate going to the Election Commission with complaints that the PML-N and PTI candidates were overspending. This was seemingly the only aspect the PPP had the strength to contest, in an area that included parts of Lahore that foretold the party’s demise in the city all those decades back. NA-122 includes areas which were included in the constituency from where Ms Benazir Bhutto had won in 1988, not by too impressive a margin to a man famous for installing water coolers in the locality. Her party tamely conceded the seat to the same candidate in a by-election, accelerating the process of the PPP’s ouster from Lahore’s politics.

Barrister Amir Hasan, with all his resort to Bhutto’s slogans, represents but a very soft PPP challenge to the parties of the time. It could however be said that the popular jury which the contestants parade themselves before in search of approval is not totally bereft of the qualities of the past, which helped the PPP stage comebacks in the past.

Win or lose, the PML-N should be happy to have rediscovered some of its old self in the city it is always super desperate to hold — be it the 1990s, 2013 or 2015.

Take Aleem Khan, the PTI horse in the race. Maligned through a vicious campaign and painted corrupt from head to toe, it would be a shock to the Khan haters to know that there are people in his constituency who are actually fond of Aleem Khan. This endearment could well be rooted in the explanation that puts allegiance to Imran Khan’s leadership above everything else, but it is also yet another instance to open the eyes of those who must act as the ‘soul’ sponsors of good and must condemn the other as an embodiment of evil.

In short it is an example for both the PML-N and PTI to remember as they jostle with each other to claim the high moral ground in their fight to dislodge the other.

The PML-N of course found its old voice during the election campaign, which was not a surprise at all, even if it might have rankled some of those who had naively believed that they had actually left the ’90s behind them. This was the same old tone — maybe not as personal as it used to be but as full of passion and purpose and as self-righteous as it ever was. It was aided by the gentile PTI renegades out to show the world that the old lobbies of the Jews was up and about working through the good offices of Mr Khan, recreating, even if briefly, the old image that went perfectly with the wayward ways adopted by the PPP leadership in the party’s prime.

Win or lose, the PML-N should be happy to have rediscovered some of its old self in the city it is always super desperate to hold — be it the 1990s, 2013 or 2015. The occasion of an election helped it to have a proud quick count of just how many stalwarts it had based in Lahore, from the workmanlike Hamza Shahbaz Sharif to the increasingly talkative Saad Rafiq who didn’t mind speaking about his past differences with the Sharifs as he set about establishing a frank rapport with the people.

So diligent and so upbeat and apparently so efficient were the Lahore boys that they did make the louder cousins from Faisalabad in the shape of Talal Chaudhry and Abid Sher Ali with their agitated gesturing a little too much to bear with for the faint-hearted. It was a united enough front put up by the Lahoris.

One remarkable feat performed by the PML-N was when it brought together religious scholars from various schools in a joint declaration of support for Sardar Ayaz Sadiq. The scholars prayed together rehearsing the unification of the people living in NA-122 to support the PML-N on polling day on Oct 11. If that was not a sure enough sign amid all kind of surveys that put Sardar Ayaz Sadiq ahead of Aleem Khan, the totay wala was at hand to have his bird predict a PML-N victory.

The attempt at creating this impression has been one of the main planks in the PML-N campaign. Yet there is a contest, and the aspirations brought out by the PTI’s challenge raise many questions, notwithstanding who wins or loses, regardless of what happens on the day of voting. One crucial question is about Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s grand uplift work in Lahore that is perceived by many in the light of undue favours. If the chief minister has been unable to secure Lahore from the rivals’ threats with all these ‘enviable’ schemes then he must review and find out what he has been doing wrong. There is a case for the celebrated chief minister to pause and find out what it is about him that so many around him in his city today find ‘boring’.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2015

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