ON Sunday, the PTI was able to hold a jalsa in Islamabad. More than a year after its troubles began on May 9, 2023, and the party contested an election without any public campaigning and gatherings, it held a public show outside KP. They had held a power show in Swabi after forming the government but then, holding a jalsa in a province the party rules is hardly news.
This gathering, too, was a long time coming. Postponements, permissions (or the lack thereof), and many nail-biting ‘will they, won’t they’ moments — the drama continued for some time. Even after the date and the venue, which was far from the city, were finalised, doubts remained: the city was turned into ‘containeristan’ and last-minute lawmaking gave the local administration extraordinary powers to deal with all future public gatherings in the capital.
Once the jalsa began, the police watched the timings as hawkishly as the administration in Lahore monitors weddings in big hotels — the lights-out deadline is a hard stop. By 7.30pm, half an hour after the jalsa was supposed to end, the channels were reporting that policemen had been injured by participants’ stone-throwing and had been forced to resort to shelling. The breathless coverage made it seem as if a stand-off had begun over the ‘party’ not ending on time.
But this breaking news was soon forgotten while social media kept reporting on a jalsa that continued late into the night. In this age of........