The PTI-N Reaction

The recent formation of a splinter group of PTI called PTI-N has come as a shock to quite a few PTI supporters. In the days that have followed since its creation PTI-N has spent considerable time on social media sites trying to explain why they have broken away from their mother party. What PTI-N has done is nothing new, it is something that is normal and has happened to pretty much every political party in Pakistan. So you would think that this would be a non issue and that it would just be ignored. I mean after all the Original PML is now splintered in to the PML N, Q, F, Z and also gave birth to AML. PPP went through a similar phase where it ended up being PPP-P, SB, S and Patriots. The point being that this sort of stuff happens in politics and it should be taken in stride as its part of the game or so you would think. But PTI reacted to this news in their usual  childish manner. Their army of internet trolls heaped abuse at the newly formed faction and even declared how wrong they were and that they were nothing more than a bunch of paid agents of ABC political party. This assault continued and as of yesterday the Twitter account of the PTI N has been suspended courtesy a massive number of requests to block it by the PTI troll army.

Now normally this is the part where I would thrash the PTI for being moronic, but this time around I am not going to do that. I am going to instead give them honest advice and help them out. The way PTI troll army acted is childish beyond doubt but thing is their actions have hurt them more than anyone else. The reason for that is simple, before the whole troll army attacked; PTI N was a bunch of unknown people from Lahore who had formed a splinter group. They had done one press conference that was to be honest not even taken seriously by the media. And they were doing their level best to get any attention at all from anyone willing to listen. So in short they were a splinter group no one really gave a crap about. They just made news one day and that was that. 

Within 3 news cycles they would have been forgotten and they would have become a joke or at best a slight pain in the ass for the PTI in the short run. In the long run they would have been wiped out within 6 months tops. Now this is what would have probably happened to them if they had been left to do their bidding. But PTI being PTI and their troll army being mostly moronic chose to take this party divorce to heart and started their routine of attacking people from behind a computer screen.

Suddenly PTI-N gained attention that it had been trying to gain so hard courtesy of the PTI Troll Army. Within 24 hours they had twitter followers, had a blog up and running and multiple people making comments. They suddenly became news. And guess who got them this whole attention? …PTI. I mean come on how stupid is that, the same people you are trying to bury become a topic of discussion because you are too moronic to leave them alone and die out in a corner. It is actually hilarious how the PTI has bungled this up to be an issue when it was quite simply a non issue to start with.

PTI is a political party and has been that way for 16 years. They have recently gained supporters and are enjoying the limelight for the first time. It is time they actually evolved in to a mature party; they have to start thinking two steps in advance now. The whole amateur hour is clearly over and they need to accept that and move on. These rookie mistakes have to end. They need to understand that doing what they did with PTI N will just get more attention to the other party. It is a counterproductive activity. Actually that is a concept they need to understand very clearly that not all activities are productive, a lot of them are counterproductive for example consistently talking about a non issue makes it an issue.  This sort of behavior by the Troll Army is what pisses a lot of neutral people off and PTI needs to start realizing that now. It is high time they did.