If Imran's rallies are generally well-attended they are mostly mismanaged also. His fall from the forklift in Lahore on Tuesday evening causing him not-so-light injuries was very much avoidable. But it did happen essentially because the whole idea to lift him to the 20-feet high dais on a rickety lifter was too childish. Five security guards would join Imran Khan - as if it were the last train to leave the station - and in the process bring everyone crashing down on the ground.
Apparently, no one was in charge of the arrangements at the venue. Indeed, his are mostly the new voters, young and passionate and eager to be part of the change for a 'Naya Pakistan', unlike the others' rallies where for the majority of the audience an election rally is not something of a novelty. Such was the pell-mell in the dying light of the day at the Lahore rally that as he fell, no one could be kept away, beyond a kind of buffer zone separating the dais from the spectators.
How much mismanaged was the rally but for the unfortunate incident none would have talked about. It was pathetic to watch former Pakistan captain being hand-carried to his car to be ferried to hospital instead of an ambulance. God forbid, had his injuries been fatal its consequences to the nation's most crucial democratic exercise would have been simply apocalyptic. Now that this incident with unknown consequences is behind us, we look forward to the election race staying the course. In one sentence, the 'Election May-11' has survived probably its most serious challenge. If Khan's escape from serious harm is miraculous for his person and his party it has, no less wonderfully, brought to light quite a few positive characteristics of our national life. As soon as the news of his accident became public his most vocal political rival, Nawaz Sharif, came out with his message of sympathy. Not only that, the PML (N) chief also cancelled all of his next day's election-related engagements.
Credit goes to Nawaz Sharif for his very timely expression of sympathy for his arch-rival in the forthcoming polls; in fact, he has shown that humane side of his life at a number of other such tragic events. In 2007 when Benazir Bhutto was rushed to hospital after the gun-and-bomb attack on her he was one of the first few who reached there. He also showed up at the graveside of BB in Garhi Khuda Bux. Soon after Nawaz Sharif's message was aired there was a torrent of sympathy messages from across the national political spectrum, plus many visits to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, Lahore, where the PTI chairman is being treated. Certainly, such an expression of solidarity with a fellow competitor is manifestation of the political maturity at the level of top-slotted leaderships, and is expected to percolate down to the lower-rung parties' echelons - to calm down the explosive passion that runs through the party workers sometimes leading to unsavoury developments.
Maybe with hindsight the leaders realise the futility of badmouthing their rivals at the public meetings. And, quite paradoxically, there is a view that Imran is bound to reap a rich harvest of sympathy vote. In the eyes of a common voter, his ardent supporters contend, he fell fighting for defence of democracy in Pakistan. And if this does come about, it is going to be an entirely a new and novel outcome; the PPP's 2008 election victory was as much courtesy the sympathy-generated following BB's assassination as of its contestants' merit, if not more.
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