COULD something be cooking within the PTI again? Over the weekend, several old and new faces paid visits to the party’s otherwise low-profile vice-chairman, ostensibly to ‘discuss politics’.

On Saturday, former PTI leaders Fawad Chaudhry, Mahmood Maulvi and Imran Ismail called on Shah Mahmood Qureshi at a Lahore hospital, where the incarcerated PTI vice-chairman was recently shifted for medical treatment. It was later reported, however, that they ‘returned empty-handed’.

A day later, PTI secretary-general Salman Akram Raja called on Mr Qureshi, with party leaders Shaukat Basra and Zaheer Babar in tow. Among other things, the ‘current political situation’ was on the agenda, party sources said. The attention around the PTI vice-chairman would have gone unnoticed, considering how little one usually hears of him in public discourse, even though Mr Qureshi, too, has been behind bars for a considerable period. However, later remarks from the former PTI leaders put an interesting spin on the situation.

According to the former leaders, the present PTI leadership has completely failed to secure any relief for its jailed leaders. This includes not only Imran Khan, but other ‘forgotten’ leaders such as Dr Yasmin Rashid, Ejaz Chaudhry, and Omar Sarfraz Cheema, too, not to mention Mr Qureshi. The former leaders’ separate statements to the media were variations on this same line. Apparently, they had visited Mr Qureshi to secure his blessings for their ‘free Imran Khan campaign’, but, according to the PTI vice-chairman’s lawyer, were quickly shooed away before they could make their case.

The current leaders would have been understandably concerned when they met Mr Qureshi the next day, but whether or not they left reassured was not disclosed. With a senior commentator blaming Mr Khan in their column for ‘blocking his party’s path’ with confrontational politics, it would appear that another attempt at ‘minus-ing’ Mr Khan may be in the works.

Whatever the case, the PTI should realise that negotiation with other political players has remained an option. It is sheer obduracy that has prevented it from finding a way out of its predicament. With the space narrowing for the exercise of civil liberties, the PTI leadership must consider whether it has been worth making an enemy of everyone in the game — although, sadly, the government, too, has failed to show flexibility towards a political party with arguably the largest support base in the country.

The direction in which things are headed could spell disaster for the entire political edifice, and the PTI is currently in no position to protect its constituencies from the fallout if this were to happen. It must, at the very least, demonstrate a sense of responsibility and pay serious thought to how this country’s long political crisis can be brought to a negotiated end. There seems to be no other option before it at the moment.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2025