PESHAWAR: The disgruntled office-bearers of PML-N have decided to hold a workers convention on Nov 26 in Peshawar to decide their future line of action, saying that the leadership has been ignoring them on important occasions like visits of the senior leadership and federal ministers.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, PML-N Peshawar district president Abdul Sattar Khalil said that the annoyed office-bearers had repeatedly requested the central leadership to pay attention to grievances of the workers, but no one bothered to heed to their calls.

“We were expecting that with the appointment of a PML-N’s man as KP governor the workers will have the opportunity to get their problems resolved, but to no avail,” said Mr Khalil.

He said that despite PML-N’s government in the centre the officials of federal government departments were not paying attention to resolving problems being faced by the party workers. He said that many of the workers had problems with Wapda, SNGPL and Nadra, but the officials were not paying any attention to them.

Say leadership ignoring party’s KP office-bearers

The main reason for the officials’ apathy, he said, was the irresponsible attitude of the party’s federal ministers with the party office-bearers in KP. “Whenever the ministers come to KP they avoid informing and meeting the party people,” he said, adding that the party should make it mandatory that every minister should meet the office-bearers so that the officials would also pay them attention.

“It seems that our leaders are not interested in strengthening the party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. We are going to take some important decisions in the scheduled convention,” he said.

Mr Khalil blamed the party’s provincial general secretary Rehmat Salam Khattak for using the name of governor for his personal gains while ignoring the workers. He expressed reservations about the visits of Marvi Memon, a PML-N leader, to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, and said that her involvement in party affairs was damaging it and creating mistrust among the party activists.

“Marvi Memon was a member of former president Pervez Musharaf’s team who changed loyalties and got the same position in our party by pushing aside the seniors,” he said. He warned that if senior leaders were bypassed in such a manner they would no longer waste time in the party. He said that the convention would be held at the Galaxy Hall, Hayatabad, where workers could take decisions like holding protest demonstrations outside the Governor House.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2014