A FOGGY Lahore will witness a far from quiet Sunday today when the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leadership and supporters will gather in front of Nasir Bagh to begin their latest protest.

As political gimmickry goes, Imran Khan, the face of Pakistan’s angry and dissatisfied youth, has his finger on the right pulse. In the citadel of the Sharif empire, a protest about inflation – every person’s nightmare – will highlight what has so far been the Sharifs’ biggest failure. They have not been able to deliver on the economy that delivered Punjab and the centre to them in the general elections.

But critics are far from convinced. It seems as if the PTI chief has not stopped living in 2012 when he was still outside parliament and had no option but to take to the streets and hour-long stints with television cameras to remind us that he was alive and in the game.

He is still the angry outsider, horrified by the unfair, corrupt system.

From the protests about election rigging to the Nato drama in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the latest inflation “ka rona dhona” (outcry), it seems as if the PTI chief is suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder and acquires an obsession only to drop it within weeks for another one.

Can one of his capable right hand men (or women) remind their chief that he is no longer standing beside the Tahirul Qadris of the world but has instead joined the league of those known as ‘elected representatives’? Can Khan Sahib stop hitting the streets and instead try doing politics through the institution he has been elected to – the parliament?

Along with the treasury benches, which have ignored their obligation to be held accountable to the people through the parliament, Khan probably happens to be the most absent opposition member of the House.

In the previous session, which ended on Friday, the PTI chief made perhaps two appearances in the house.

And with Imran Khan missing in action, his parliamentarians were simply a herd without their shepherd. “Baaghi Hashmi” (Hashmi the rebel) rambled on, whenever given the chance, about his long gone past; Shah Mehmood Qureshi hardly impressed; Shirin Mazari was her usual pugnacious self, ‘charming’ people inside the house as she has outside; and the economic wizard Asad Umer was not present the day Ishaq Dar turned up to indulge in some economic self-praise (PTI had walked out to protest Nisar Ali Khan’s use of the word ‘tamasha’).

Lacklustre performance

In other words, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s performance is about as lacklustre as is the PPP’s; but where the PPP is burdened by its past five years of (mis)rule, the PTI has no such baggage. And yet its lack of sizzle in the parliament is noticeable.

In fact, when the PTI’s drone drama was in full swing, more than a few in Islamabad wondered what the Khan was up to. The ‘tamasha’ in KP didn’t help the party’s image in a province ruled by it.

People wondered why the party was not using its numbers inside the house to highlight the economic mess; the circular debt and the impending loadshedding instead of just droning on about the drones.

Not even the PTI wallahs could provide any convincing answers.

And now when the party has finally woken up to the economic drone, it has one again taken to the streets. Undoubtedly, there is some method in the party’s madness. By carrying out such protests in Punjab against electricity shortage while ruling the province during the last tenure, the PML-N was able to convince the voters that the power crisis was PPP’s fault entirely.

Perhaps the Khan hopes this protest will help bolster his party’s image as Punjab’s best alternative on the eve of the local elections, especially as the PPP’s revival in the province remains a distant dream.

But this surely cannot be the only party strategy for the coming five years.

Street brawn cannot make up for the complete absence of brain in the parliament. And if Khan needs proof of this, he simply needs to see Aitzaz Ahsan and Raza Rabbani at work in the Senate.