I HAVE a feeling that what was long dreaded is taking place. The urge for backing the underdog and the forever maligned is exacting a huge price. My worst fears are coming true, once again. I am developing a soft corner for Aleem Khan. I sympathise with him, if not that, I recognise his worth as an anti-thesis, someone who is capable of avenging the voiceless and timid around him. The support to him could last only until the vindication of a certain point. It is exactly as it had happened in the case of so many others before him who were castigated and flogged by the self-righteous to celebrate the good they forever associate with themselves. I may not have liked Aleem Khan when he arrived. What I dislike more is the sureness with which his detractors advertise their integrity.

But first a recap of the mundane. The PTI has lost the election in NA-122. The list of causes is out and the standard rigging complaints are on their way. The Imran Khan associates want a recount, which they apparently are fully entitled to. They were always expected to continue following this course. No surprises there. Also a little change in the overall party profiles. The PML-N is still at the helm with PTI breathing dangerously down its neck. This is how it has been.

It has been said before that the dispute is of far greater proportions to be resolved through a by-election, whenever it is held, whoever the winner. It will require an exercise of the size and significance of a general election to resolve this. If a prediction must be made about that eventuality, then by all signs and symbols, the PML-N remains by far the biggest claimant to power then as now.

Since we the hacks must have something to munch on until the next general election, let’s amuse ourselves with some popularity chart-making. The PTI has managed to keep us all interested by giving the PML-N a scare. The ultimate truth remains that the only progress that could possibly accrue out of the by-polls was dependent on a PTI win. Everyone knew that PTI would not budge from its position in case it lost the by-election. There never was any doubt about this.

Mired in myths that generate envy and anger, Aleem Khan was someone many wanted defeated when he first burst onto the scene in Lahore.

The election was being closely monitored for the stance the PML-N would have been forced to take had it lost. The numbers proved that we were not too far from reaching that point. The party in power managed to scrape through with a last-minute resort to all the resources available to them. They were almost gone at one stage and it is not so much their appeal and ability in the public eye which encourages estimates about the PML-N being — still — the party to beat in Punjab. The problem with the PTI is that it doesn’t have too many Aleem Khans to take on the PML-N stalwarts in the province. That is a pity considering how much excitement an Aleem Khan is capable of creating in a contest.

The well-meaning and the sincere, also the frowning types and the easily offended, are all coming up with lists of what went right for the PML-N and what the PTI did wrong. Among the explanations offered is, prominently, one which says the PTI lost because it had not so famous a man as its candidate. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

There was one message that I came across which said Imran Khan could have chosen anyone from Andaleeb Abbas to Dr Yasmin Rashid to Omar Sarfaraz Cheema as his candidate to take on Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, the PML-N man born with the perfect manners of a speaker, only for his leaders to discover him after the 2013 polls. Imran could select anyone but Aleem Khan, reputedly the infamous member of the nouveau-riche club. I just checked with a few people in the constituency and then with a reporter working on the PTI beat. The reporter confirms that no other person but Aleem Khan could hope to garner as many votes in the National Assembly constituency. Except, maybe, Imran Khan himself I say, but my reporter friend doubts it.

Mired in myths that generate envy and anger, Aleem Khan was someone so many of us wanted defeated when he first burst onto the scene in Lahore. He was the creation of circumstances created chiefly by Pervez Musharraf. So strong was the emotion against him that even when there were suspicions that Dr Tahirul Qadri had been unfairly given victory over Aleem Khan in a Lahore constituency, few were willing to stand by the wronged. The mood in general was anti-Aleem and those seeking equality were all too happy to see the parasites around the rich and undeserving man fleece him to the limit.

How that has changed in my mind — even if the image of the now quite seasoned politician remains the same in the morally dictated chronicles of the hypocrites. Aleem Khan continues to draw all kinds of allegations. In the land of the most pious he is projected as the ultimate, refined avatar of the unscrupulous, the sinner. If that is a corroboration of just how different he is from his detractors and near-persecutors, he should at least be praised in comparison with the hypocrites.

These detractors are present not only in the camps of those who oppose Aleem Khan politically. They are there in good numbers in his own party, which is led by Imran Khan with the mock sureness of someone who has never done any ‘wrong’ in his life. This condemnation of Aleem Khan by rivals and colleagues makes him a special-collection article. He is someone who can be approved of without necessarily being fond of his party or his leader.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play