PESHAWAR: Despite formation of organising and core committees last month, Pakistan Peoples Party does not seem to have overcome its internal differences as a strong group is fast emerging to challenge the nomination of former ministers on key party offices in the province.

Several meetings of, what they call themselves, ideological workers were held in different districts of the province during the past some weeks, but the workers’ convention in Nowshera on May 31 exposed the split in the party.

Party’s co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari had also addressed the convention and urged the PPP activists to shun differences and forge unity.

It was attended by representatives from majority of the districts, including former KP governor Masood Kausar, former federal minister Lal Mohammad Khan, Dr Afsarul Mulk, Syed Ayub Shah, Mian Muzaffar Shah, Abdul Akbar Khan, Azam Afridi, Tariq Khattak, Zulfiqar Afghani, Tahir Abbas, Yawar Naseer, Saeed Ahmed Khan, etc.

Split seen in the party at workers convention in Nowshera

It was a party convention, but provincial president Khan Zada Khan and many of the former provincial ministers, who also held key offices of the party in the past, were not invited to the event.

The party has already dissolved all of its organisational units and announced a core committee and another organising committee at provincial level to work on reorganisation of the party.

However, these committees seem powerless in the prevailing situation because a group in the party is not ready to accept any decision taken by the existing bodies.

When contacted, some of the leaders who attended the convention said on Sunday that they could not accept a decision taken by former ministers, who are now members of the core committee.

“These ministers have brought a bad name to the party due to their alleged corruption and maltreatment with the party workers,” they recalled.

“We welcome the intra-party elections, but the process should be for all. We will not accept any leader in the provincial cabinet to come on the basis of nomination because it will be clear contradiction if some office-bearers come through intra-party elections and the influential through nominations,” the leaders said.

The senior leaders said that they were ready to cooperate with the provincial president Khan Zada Khan in the party’s interest, but he was also in the grip of the same ‘selfish’ and corrupt people who tarnished image of the party during the past five years in powers.

However, Lal Mohammad Khan said that Asif Zardari also addressed the convention and it was a lesson for what he described as so-called leaders to tender resignation in the best interest of the party.

“We will not let anyone impose his wrong policies on us because it is party of martyred leaders which cannot be run by ‘shopkeepers’ and corrupt elements,” he lamented.

He said that the central leadership had been apprised of the entire situation and there was need to form a committee of at least 10 senior people to resolve the differences otherwise no worker would obey the provincial president and those running around him.

“I have always stressed the need that the party should be brought back on the track with revival of the ideology of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto on the basis of democracy,” Syed Ayub Shah said.

He suggested that the parliamentary and party affairs should be separated so that mistakes of the elected representatives would not affect the party otherwise it would be impossible for the office-bearers to satisfy the workers.

Mr Shah said that the workers had no differences with the provincial president, but they were opposed to some of the former ministers and office-bearers who accumulated wealth at the cost of party interests.

He said that the workers had genuine demands and the leadership was bound to satisfy them.

Fahim Khattak, media coordinator of the provincial president, said that the convention was held in violation of the party discipline where the provincial president and other senior leaders were present.

He said that Mr Zardari had cut short his speech when he came to know that the provincial president and other senior leaders were not present in the convention.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2014