It seems that the first round of political battle has been won by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. It would have been better had the government engaged him in a dialogue a couple of months back soon after he had made it known that he will be locking down Islamabad. His declaration was then taken with a pinch of salt. He was made fun of. The government ministers cracked jokes at him. His ego was thus wounded unnecessarily.
Undeterred the Maulana continued his political effort to make other leading political leaders of the country join his ranks and finally succeeded to a great extent in persuading the two bigger political parties , the PPP and the PML(N) to join forces with him towards the end of the current month to display their show of strength.
Realising rather belatedly that the Maulana has become a political force to be reckoned with and if he brought even a couple of thousand of protestors to the federal capital it would be difficult for the lackadaisical local police to use force against them and in case the provincial governments tried to prevent them forcibly , the possibility of violent clashes between them and the law and order enforcing agencies cannot be ruled out altogether, the government did well to offer table talk to the JUI(F) chief. It is another matter that now if the Maulana came to some understanding he would demand a heavy price for it from the powers that be because he will be talking to the government from a position of strength with all the political parties worth their salt standing four square behind him. The government has to blame not but itself for dragging its feet too long on this issue which could have been nipped in the bud quite easily back in June this year at a much easy cost.
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