This is apropos a Business Recorder news item “Poor’s socio-welfare development: PM describes it as his govt’s ‘key responsibility’” carried by the newspaper yesterday. According to it, Prime Minister Imran Khan has termed the poor and underprivileged a ‘key responsibility of the government’. But more interesting is the photograph accompanying the news item. The picture shows the prime minister is interacting with the beneficiaries of PTI government’s Ehsaas Kafalat Programme in Kallar Syedan, Rawalpindi district. The photograph has clearly shown the rural grandeur and simplicity. All, including the PM, are sitting on charpoys. But PM’s apparent simplicity can be described by his detractors as deceptive. In politics, optics matter.

Mehtab Abbasi (Islamabad)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021