Daily Times

Adiyala Road in Rawalpindi shoots off from the main boulevard in the Cantt area. But Imran Khan has put this road at the centre of all activities. Unfortunately, however it may look like, this road has outshone the Constitutional Avenue that houses all the key decision-making offices like the Parliament, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court.

The parliamentary session will start in the coming week and what happens at Adiyala will dictate its outcome. There finally appears a hope for something that can be anything as the trio of PTI leaders namely Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Ali Zafar and Sher Afzal Marwat announced on Wednesday that they have jotted down a set of their demands to be put to the government.

They say that they have a mandate and the party leader has authorised them to go ahead with the talks. They have been holding their demands to their chests tightly as no word is out about them. Nonetheless, the government is more than happy that at least something has come out.

The party’s track record about the talks is quite doubtful. Recently, it had talks with the government on December 27 and January 2. They did not have something written on paper entering those dialogue sessions.

Now this group of lawyers claims that they have met their leader Imran Khan and have prepared demands.

The government has already indicated that the party and its leaders are not serious about holding talks. Different ministers and their advisors have time and again pointed out that there is no one leader or a set of leaders of the PTI to talk to.

Not with any stretch of pragmatism can we say that the current round of talks will change anything. The party is counting on its street power and social media trolling. The government is advised to make decisions on Constitution Avenue. It should not let itself be dragged to Adiyala Road in Rawalpindi. *