“I know of one person who has voluntarily become a sacrificial lamb.” “Well it ain’t The Maulana. He has left The Man Who Must Remain Nameless far behind where U-turns are concerned.”

“Hmmm, I would amend that, the U-turns of The Man Who Remain Nameless were really doubling back – you know reversing and then going back the same route…”

“The same route as his predecessors or the same route as dictated by his ideology?”

“His political ideology was supplanted by his religious ideology after his Third Marriage, sad that as he would need to double back if he is to win the next elections – I reckon the status quo parties that he got this time may not be his in the next elections.”

“The PPP won pretty much the projected number of seats, yeah, yeah Karachi seats are pawns, you know in the game of chess a pawn is the most overpowered piece…”

“Dear Lord, you do live dangerously. And the knight, the piece that can jump over other pieces?”

“Well, maybe Notification Maryam Nawaz (NMN) – I mean the jumps she has been guided to take…”

“Wait, now that she has a very important public office let her show her mettle, anyway The Maulana unlike The Man Who Must Remain Nameless has taken a U-turn when you and I thought there was no available U-turn.”

“There you go, anyway, neither of the people you mentioned have opted to voluntarily go to the altar to be sacrificed.”

“You talking pagan sacrifices to their gods?”

“No, don’t we sacrifice on Eid al-Azha!”

“That’s right so who is the sacrificial lamb, wait is it Ishaq Dar? I mean, I see him on television negotiating on behalf of his party and this after his failure to negotiate with the IMF that brought us close to default…”

“Remember the man who is continuing to make the same mistake again and again and again, expecting a positive result just to prove he was right all those time before?”

“Ah right Nawaz Sharif anyway just because the stakeholders have vetoed him as the next finance minister and the PPP has put a stop to his ambition to be the Senate Chairman…”

“On a deal that Dar negotiated.”

“Hmmm, anyway Nawaz Sharif may give him any other ministry that is important and…”

“Yep, there are many other ministries that he can head which may require his touch to crumple and…”

“Shush, anyway, he isn’t the sacrificial lamb that I referred to. It’s Shehbaz Sharif – during his sixteen months he was forced to take on Dar as finance minister and got blamed for Dar’s flawed policies, and now he is again to head the government because the launch of NMN in a major position was linked to leading the government in the Centre.”

“Right, but maybe, just maybe, she performs…”

“Look over there - I see a horse flying.”

“Don’t be facetious.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024