Project Imran Khan was allegedly an unofficial political project of the Pakistani military establishment to launch the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan as a mainstream national leader and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf as the third force in the country along with Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Pakistan People's Party. The project started in 2011 and ended in 2022 with the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan.

Background

Since the 1958 Pakistani military coup, the armed forces have been playing an active role in politics both directly in the case of martial law and indirectly by creating, promoting, and supporting favorite politicians and political parties. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and several other politicians were members or products of the military establishment in one way or another.

History
The Project Imran Khan was initiated in 2011 by Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence. After his retirement in 2012, the project was taken forward by the Pasha's successor Zaheer-ul-Islam and used Imran Khan to remove Nawaz Sharif from the government. Imran Khan's march towards Islamabad in 2014 and then the dharna at D Chowk was also allegedly the result of ISI's planning but it failed. After the retirement of Zaheer-ul-Islam, the file of Project Imran Khan was temporarily closed.

The file was reopened when General Qamar Javed Bajwa became the Army Chief. Before the 2018 election, Bajwa had a meeting with Imran Khan, but he was not much impressed by him. Bajwa wanted Shahbaz Sharif to take political separation from his brother Nawaz Sharif but Shahbaz refused to betray his brother for the sake of the prime ministership. After Shahbaz's refusal, Bajwa again approached Khan. The relaunch of Project Imran Khan in 2018 was aimed at bringing many constitutional and political reforms in the country. Khan, on the other hand, began using the army to take revenge on his political opponents. He developed personal relationships with some military officers who did not like Bajwa.

Failure and unforeseen consequences
In 2019, differences between Bajwa and Khan began to arise. Bajwa wanted the removal of Faiz Hameed as the DG ISI but Khan refused to do so. Also, the Chinese government was reportedly unhappy working with Khan's team on the CPEC project. This was also worrisome for the army. Eventually, they withdrew all the support they were giving to Khan's government. This led to expulsion of Imran Khan from the government through a no-confidence motion in April 2022.

Khan blamed Bajwa and the army for the removal of his government, and PTI supporters started a huge social media campaign, mainly on twitter with trends being there for days, against the army and ISI.  Bajwa retired on 29 November 2022 but Khan continued to criticize the army leadership. In fact, PTI supporters had declared him as their 'red line'. Therefore, when he was arrested on 9 May 2023, his supporters initiated a violent protest that had been seen never before in the political history of Pakistan. They entered the cantonment areas and burned a Corps Commander's house in Lahore. The angry protestors shook the GHQ's gate and upset the statues of decorated soldiers. This all was more than enough for the army and its newly appointed chief Asim Munir. Hence, a country-wide crackdown against PTI was started and thousands of its supporters were arrested on the charges of anti-state activities.

References

Political history of Pakistan
Political parties in Pakistan
Political controversies in Pakistan