RAWALPINDI: A rebellion awaits Imran Khan and his Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) next month at a convention of disgruntled party leaders and workers in Punjab to be held in Lahore, it seems.

A dissenter holding high position in the party confided to Dawn on Sunday that “workers dismayed at the harm newcomers from the PML-Q and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) caused by misguiding PTI leadership on poll rigging issue and running the party without elected bodies will attend the convention”.

Though he claimed a senior PTI leader will ‘supervise’ the convention, he declined to name him “because PML-Q and JI turncoats will manage to scuttle the convention”.

But he assured that PTI workers from all the 32 districts of Punjab will be there, and retired Justice Wajihuddin, whose rulings on intra-party elections caused fissures in the PTI, will be the chief guest.

Basically, the convention would echo “the resentment against the party leadership letting PML-Q and JI deserters into PTI and spoil its democratic structure” after party’s sit-in outside the parliament against the rigging in the 2013 general elections, according to the source.

A party source said newcomers from JI and PML-Q had misguided PTI leadership on poll rigging

“The newcomers in the party managed to appoint organisers in every district, ignoring those who had been serving the party for the past 15 years. Because of their bad strategy the PTI lost the cantonment board elections in Punjab where it had won in 2013 general elections,” he said.

According to him, party workers were mostly critical of “the role of PTI secretary general Jehangir Tareen, who had served Pervez Musharraf as a minister and spoiled the democratic structure of the party.”

“Instead of providing proof to the Inquiry Commission that the 2013 elections were rigged,” he said, “the secretary general caused embarrassment to the party. Time has come to accept the negligent ways of the party office bearers, ask them to resign and reorganize the party”. 

“At local (Rawalpindi) level, the party appointed Rashid Hafeez organiser of NA-55, who switched to PTI from PML-Q in 2008, and Fayyazul Hasan Chohan, formerly of JI, organizer of NA-56 at the cost of hard-core party old-guards. Other deserters from these parties and the PML-N were accepted at lower level,” he said.

“As the PTI stands divided, results of the coming local government elections will be no different for it from those it suffered in the cantonment board elections,” he predicted.

“The party leadership failed to consult its experience members who had contested the local government elections in 2001, including Raja Tariq Kiyani, for the forthcoming contest and devise a better strategy,” he said.

Former PTI District President and MPA Arif Abbasi supported holding a convention of dissenting workers “for bringing about changes in the party” but said no invitation had reached him yet.

However, he insisted that PTI was “a democratic party which respects difference of opinion” and thought the resentment in the party ranks would end soon. 

“At present, the local leaders and workers are mobilising the people for the local government elections so that the PML-N would not rig these elections too,” he said.  

Former PTI Punjab Vice President Raja Tariq Kiyani was ‘not aware’ of convention plans but said “such things are common” in political parties.

“PTI should provide opportunities and forums to its workers to express their feelings freely and chart its course in their light for achieving better results in future. It direly needs unity to contest the local government elections,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2015

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