Islamabad : May 27,2024: The government decision to announce May 28 as a public holiday to celebrate detonation of nuclear devices has not worked well this time. It ,instead bringing the nation closer and unit it in an environment wherein Pakistan stands divided, left even more divided and polarized. Pakistan had conducted nuclear tests on May 28,1998 in Nawaz Sharif rule and since then whenever PMLN comes into power it announces public holiday to celebrate May 28 as the most important day of Pakistan’s history . In the past the PMLN government ‘s strategy to take credit of having nuclear destinations to give befitting response to India worked well and it united Pakistani nation at least for one day on May 28, but this year , things have gone the other way around . As usual Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) government announced public holiday to take credit of making Pakistan a nuclear state, but it left a negative message to the world especially to neighbours which put Pakistan into a race for having nuclear capability to deter them to have any aggression against Pakistan. First , the trading community disassociated itself from the government decision of having public holiday on May 28 and announced to do business as usual . Then Kyber Pukhtunkhaw (KPK) government run by Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf ,(PTI) did not honour the federal government decision to shut down the routine businesses and other activities in the province. Similarly , there was no notification of public holiday from AJK and GB governments for May 28. In Islamabad , private sector too rejected the government decision and decided to remain on job as usual on Tuesday. Although , Sindh government notified public holiday on May 28 , but most of the businesses rejected the provincial government decision and decided to keep the business markets in Karachi open on May 28. The government decision of having public holiday on May 28 put the students in total confusion. Since May is a mid of annual exams in the educational institutions , the students had no clear idea of what the government wants to do on May 28 and why their scheduled to exams were jeopardized. Many educational institutions announced to carry on their exams on May 28 as per routine whereas some toed the government line and rescheduled the exams were to be taken on May 28 for some other dates. A public holiday on May 28 is a bad idea solely tailored by PMLN for cheep political stunt.
