Why Imran Khan Isn't Going Away.

He was knocked down but, just like his predecessors, jumped back in the ring and vowed to fight till the end.

In his all-guns-blazing video statement on Friday, wheelchair-bound PTI chief Imran Khan addressed the ruling alliance and the powers that be right from a hospital built in his mother's name, asserting that he was not backing down and would bounce back on the street once out of the hospital.

Though his party's long march is temporarily postponed till he is fit to march to the capital again, Imran's populist rhetoric to take the mighty ones head on in his multi-dimensional conflict with almost all the institutions of the country was of the same intensity. Ballot or bloodshed, he said, were the only options left.

From Nawaz Sharif's 'I will not take dictation' to Yousaf Raza Gilani's 'state within a state will not be acceptable' and from Sharif's statement that the army has gone from a 'state within a state' to a 'state above the state', the concept of a parallel government run by the military is not an alien phenomenon in Pakistan anymore.

Political observers believe that Imran has lately joined the anti-establishment camp but the only difference is that he is simultaneously challenging the government and the powerful stakeholders as he believes that the civilian rulers do not have all the power when they rule.

Moreover, they believe Imran was also trying to give a collective identity to his followers so that they could feel that they matter, their lives have dignity and they are a great nation.

'Challenging the army'

Eminent scholar Professor Dr Hassan Askari said that confrontation was imminent if one hears what all sides were saying for the past few days or months. Commenting on Imran's statement a day after he was shot at and injured in a rally at Wazirabad, the professor said Imran was not only confronting the government but challenging the army as he believes they are the real players in the game and possess real power.

Professor Askari noted that Imran has tried to respond to the unprecedented press conference of the top spy chief where the latter accused the former prime minister of excessively telling lies and maintaining a double standard, among other things.

Expressing his inability to predict the final outcome of the ongoing slugfest, the professor feared that things were heading towards confrontation.

Professor Askari felt that sometimes Imran takes a 'blinkered view' of...