Here comes the maulana.

Byline: Fahd Husain

YOU can define seven kilometres in so many delightful ways. Seven kilometres is 275,591 inches unrolled; 7km is 87.5 minutes of journey if walked leisurely; 7km is seven minutes of drive time if travelling at 60km per hour.

And 7km is what separates Maulana Fazlur Rehman from Imran Khan. So go ahead and revel in the infinite possibilities of the number seven. For that is exactly what the government would be doing - or should be doing - as it braces for the fallout of the Azadi March under way exactly 7km, yes there's the number again, from the famed 'Red Zone' of the federal capital. It is inside this zone that lie the prizes that all invaders of Islamabad hunger for. Could the good maulana be different?

Read: 'Will send you food, but never hand you an NRO,' PM tells Azadi March protesters

Imran Khan would sincerely hope so. Why would he want to have done to him what he did back in 2014? But he also realises that hope is not a plan of action even though he may not have too many options to play with. Here's why:

For starters, he does not have the force of narrative with him. 'My dharna good, your dharna bad' doesn't really cut it and those among his party colleagues attempting to pull it off are cutting sorry figures. Now that the maulana is pulling an Imran Khan on Imran Khan, Imran Khan is struggling to boomerang it back on the maulana. Try as they might, PTI ministers and spokespeople just cannot argue against the logic (or the need) for a dharna - at least not with a straight face.

How do you define failure when your sole demand is the resignation of the prime minister?

A weak narrative is further burdened by a weaker strategy to deal with the maulana's marchers. The government committee headed by Defence Minister Pervez Khattak held three rounds of negotiations with the opposition's Rehbar committee led by JUI-F's Akram Durrani and came up with only an agreement for the venue and some 'do's and don'ts'. The committee members expressed surprise in private conversations that the JUI-F-led opposition committee talked about no demands except the location of the dharna. The government proposed the parade ground near Faizabad - a safe distance from the Red Zone - while the opposition demanded the hot spot of the D-Chowk. The deadlock broke when the JUI-F-led opposition itself proposed the venue at H9.

These negotiations were preceded by the government's internal deliberations on a key question: should the marchers be...