The prime minister, who had been wanting to visit the town and surrounding areas for a few days and was kept at bay by bad weather, finally managed to land in Mianwali on Wednesday afternoon. He made a general tour of the area, also using a boat, and then went to a medical camp set up at a government-run school where patients, gratitude writ large over their faces, greeted him.

The scenes must have been captured by the official TV which has recently been told to compensate for the lack of positive coverage that Prime Minister Gilani is said to be worried about. But no one would have imagined that the trip to the medical camp set up for the flood-affected people will lead to Mr Gilani's emergence as a true messiah for the ailing humanity.

No sooner had the prime minister departed from the spot than when those who had set it up decided that the camp was no more needed.

According to the Geo TV report, the beds were removed from the makeshift treatment centre in the school and the patients discharged, apparently cured by the prime ministerial healing touch.

Each one of them was Rs5,000 richer which they had received from Mr Gilani under the head of flood compensation money.

The television channel took an unusually lenient view of the episode and blamed it on the local administration. The incident, however, has the potential of turning out to be a real public relationing blunder for the prime minister and his party.

In a chat with journalists on Tuesday, Mr Gilani had betrayed his concern about how the media was not highlighting the good work the federal government was putting in to relieve the sufferings of those affected by the worst floods in years.

In that talk, he had also defended President Asif Zardari's visit to Europe at a time when many critics and political opponents said the country needed him so badly. The prime minister had categorically stated that the president was required to represent Pakistan's interests abroad, indicating that he along with other members of the president's team were at home to look after the country's affairs.

In the event, the prime minister who has been treated with some respect by the media, unwittingly became a true substitute to the president. The friends in Mianwali who staged the vanishing act on Wednesday ensured that the daily prime time slot usually reserved for the president was ably filled by the prime minister.