RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has started preparations for its public gathering against the government outside Parliament House on November 30.

It asked the local chapters of Rawalpindi, Attock, Jhelum and Chakwal districts to launch door-to-door campaigns in their respective areas to mobilise the people.

The party’s central committee will soon hand over invitation letters to the local chapters inscribed with the message of Imran Khan for inviting people to the sit-in.

A senior party leader told Dawn that the party leadership expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the local chapters of the Rawalpindi division as it failed to mobilise people after the departure of Dr Tahirul Qadri’s followers from the sit-in.  

He said the party tried to bring more people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and assigned the duties of the nearby district chapters of the PTI to bring maximum workers and supporters to the Parade Lane but they failed to meet the target.

He said during the last two weeks, the party found that the PTI’s local office-bearers sent SMS to union council presidents who forwarded the text messages to the local supporters. However, there were no arrangements to transport the people to the sit-in site.

“From Rawalpindi and Islamabad, people mostly came to the site without any coordination of the local chapters and expressed resentments about their local leaders.”

He said the PTI leaders decided to launch door-to-door campaigns in the adjoining districts of Islamabad to ensure a big gathering at least on November 30 to show the strength of the party.

He said the party had given the target to its local chapters to bring 1000 people from each tehsil. In the Rawalpindi district, the target has been set at 10000 people as there are seven tehsils. But the Rawalpindi tehsil has two towns - Rawal and Potohar, Cantonment area and Wah Cantonment.

When contacted, PTI Rawalpindi District President and MPA Arif Abbasi admitted that the party’s local chapter had been directed to launch a mobilisation campaign for November 30.

“We will launch the campaign from November 15 and distribute the message of Imran Khan among the people,” he said.

He said the Rawalpindi district would also show its strength on Saturday (today) and local chapter will ensure the presence of thousands of people in the sit-in.

To a question about the resignation of PTI members of provincial assemblies, he said 29 members wanted to meet the Punjab Assembly speaker to verify their resignations jointly but he (speaker) did not turn up.

“The PTI wanted new elections under a new election commission,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2014