RED ZONE FILES: Minus few?

Byline: Fahd Husain

Even the storm in a teacup can spill over.

The last few weeks have been unkind to the PTI government. Very unkind. These 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' hit a bullseye on Tuesday evening when Prime Minister Imran Khan stood on the floor of the National Assembly and referred to the peculiarly Pakistani political jargon of 'Minus-one'. The problem: if ever there was a jargon pregnant with meaning - and insinuation - it is this. But only when weaponised by people like the prime minister. Otherwise the term is a harmless one usually used as fodder for vague conspiracy theories - it pops up here and there and then crawls its way back to obscurity. For now however, it is refusing to crawl away.

Two obvious questions arise: first, why did the prime minister dignify this term by using it at such an august forum? Second, does this mean there is a move afoot to operationalise the term? Even in the absence of answers, these questions come attached with consequences.

There are whispers inside the Red Zone. The prime minister referred to 'Minus-one' becAaAAuse it was something that he had been hearing so often that he deemed it fit to actually address it. But the prime minister hears a lot of things each day. And one of the perks of his job is that he actually has people and orgaAnAiAsations working for him whose job it is to inform him which of the things he is hearing should be taken seriously and which ones should be trashed. It is a safe assumption to make - hopefully - that the prime minister had the seriousness of the 'Minus-one' chatter verified by people appointed to make such verifications. The report from the relevant quarters would have presented two possibilities:

1. Yes, there is something cooking, prime minAister, and you should take action accordingly.

2. No, this is mere idle gossip, prime minister, and you need not pay any attention to it.

Which one of these options would prompt the prime minister to dignify the term with a reference in his speech in the parliament? Which one of these would prompt Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan to actually fire off a tweet saying if the prime was 'minus-ed' then democracy would be 'minus-ed'?

The answers may not be obvious but the consequences are. They have sparked off a debate - perhaps a needless one but debate all the same - about the prospects of someone from within the PTI replacing Imran Khan as the leader and prime minister. PTI did not need...