PESHAWAR, Dec 8: The nomination of new provincial president and general secretary by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is aimed at intensifying its ongoing protest against the US drone strikes and launching a full-scale campaign for the local bodies’ election in the province, according to sources.

On Sunday, PTI core committee decided to continue the anti-drone protest, started on November 23 on the call of party chairman Imran Khan at a rally held in Peshawar.

Despite scathing criticism from political parties, PTI is gearing to speed up the protest under the newly-elected president Azam Khan Swati and general secretary Khalid Masood, according to party sources.

“PTI wants to kill two birds with one stone,” they said.

Imran Khan’s PTI, which leads a coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was faced with leadership vacuum as it had announced that only party workers would take part in the protest and the government would stay away from it owing to legal problems.

The provincial leaders of the party, including president and general secretary, hold positions in government and are therefore unable to show up at the protest camps.

Asad Qaisar and Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, who were elected provincial president and general secretary of PTI in the intra-party elections, are holding the posts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly speaker and health minister respectively.

Mohammad Atif Khan, the president of Peshawar region, is education minister in the PTI-led provincial government.

Other office-bearers of the party were also in possession of some government posts, which bar them from taking part in the protest.

The PTI has also been criticised for inviting the Punjab leadership to its public meetings, which served as launching pad for the anti-drone protest. The opposition parties have also been pointing fingers at PTI provincial leaders for becoming ministers and advisers without quitting their party offices.

Asad Qaisar was replaced by Azam Swati as PTI provincial president while Khalid Masud replaced Shaukat Ali Yousafzai as general secretary.

Sources said that PTI was banking in on its workers but lack of provincial leadership became somewhat visible during the anti-drone protest as it was not an easy task for the local chapters to maintain momentum in the camp set up to block Nato supplies to Afghanistan.

They said that PTI desperately required provincial president and general secretary to facilitate access of the party workers and general public to the government and resolve their problems.

The ongoing protest campaign may cause fatigue to the workers, prompting PTI central leadership to nominate provincial office-bearers to facilitate the activists.

The new president and general secretary have already visited the protest camps.

On Sunday, PTI also announced duty schedule for workers for the next 30 days. The workers belonging to Peshawar will perform duty for 22 days, while activists from Nowshera, Charsadda, Swabi and Mardan will stay at the camps for one day each.

For the remaining days, members of Insaf Students Federation and Insaf Youth Organisation have been tasked to manage the anti-drone camps.

Khalid Masood told Dawn that they would reorganise the party to perform well in the local government elections besides providing leadership to the enraged workers, who were protesting the drone attacks.

“The appointment of provincial leaders is also aimed at bridging the gap between government and party’s workers and people. As the chief minister and ministers are preoccupied with several official assignments, therefore, the party will make all-out efforts to remain in contact with people and implement its agenda,” he said.

Mr Masood said that they would Malakand on December 10 and Mardan on 13 to listen to the problems of the party workers there. “Visits to Bannu, Dera Ismail, Kohat, Chitral and others districts are also in pipeline,” he said.

Jamaat Islami, a coalition partners in provincial government, also said that it would continue taking part in the anti-drone protest. It also asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to order the air force to target the drones.