The "Diggri Ishuu"

Yes. That shit still drags on. Kashif Abbasi did yet another show on the same thing and the same people came out to play and said the same kind of things. Umair over at Recycled Thought put forth some theses that feature Abid Sher Ali as the central figure (paraphrasing) of this "fuck up" (or "stroke of genius") .

I think there is another option which has been overlooked by pundits of the blogging (and non-blogging) kind, and I think it goes as follows:

TL;DR:

As I mentioned in a comment on the post linked above, my pet theory is that this was a ploy by NS to precipitate mid-term elections. Getting a large number of MP's disqualified in one go including his own would trigger mid-term polls, without getting the blame for "rocking the boat" as it were.

Long drawn out version:

I haven't looked into the rules as to what percentage would trigger such an event. But there might be an obscure rule in the playbook of the Pakistan Election Commission which they were hoping to use to move a court or some such (through proxies of course) to order an midterm election.

Why mid-term elections? because then they can openly put forth candidates in all constituencies against PPP-P candidates.

I think the way they played it, it would seem like they were the un-intended victims of their own overzealous adherence to "parliamentary" procedure and even though they had a large number of MP's affected, they decided to 'go back to the people'. Since they can't afford to boycott the parliament outright and take the blame for "destabilizing democracy", they went the way of the "smart suicide bumbaar".

This also explains the 'apparent' (slight) schism between the provincial and federal leaderships (or at least cadres) of PML-N which became evident during the Punjab Assembly motion against the media and Nawaz Sharif's immediate, almost pre-rehearsed reaction afterwards.

So, in my view, it is simple. They wanted mid-term elections but without having it look like they were the cause of it so they let their boy Abid Sher Ali "go at it", Nawaz Sharif cheering him on all the while to "stay loyal to the democratic principles" etc. The "expected" end result was that either the court or the election commission would have to declare by-elections, and they would score points based on the fact that they eliminated the 'black sheep' while Peoples Party fought it using dirty ploys to weasel out of having their members disqualified.

It remains to be seen whether this strategy would work. I doubt this was a "stupid mistake" by Abid Sher Ali. I think the whole thing was pre-planned with a specific effect and end goal in mind and I don't think it was "the establishment" which instigated this though they may also be the un-intended beneficiaries of the fallout.