PESHAWAR: Pakistan People’s Party has formed various committees to supervise intra-party elections in different divisions and remove differences among workers within two weeks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The joint committees consist of the incumbent office-bearers of the party and disgruntled leaders so that all kinds of rifts could be covered and new party organisations could be formed with consensus.

The decision to form the committees was taken in a lengthy meeting held here on Tuesday at residence of PPP former provincial president Rahimdad Khan. PPP provincial president Khanzada Khan chaired the meeting.

A source privy to the meeting said that most of the PPP senior leaders participated in the meeting after many years. During the past few years, PPP leaders avoided to sit together owing to internal differences in the party.

The credit, he said, went to PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who had held several meetings with leaders of all groups and directed them to sit together and remove differences to reorganise the party in the province.

Panels consist of incumbent office-bearers and annoyed leaders

The source said that participants avoided taking up personal matters and stressed the need for strengthening party at any cost to compete with other parties in the future elections.

The annoyed leaders said that they had no personal agenda but they wanted to implement Bhuttos’ philosophy and promote democratic culture in the party. They said that sober and noncontroversial workers should be made office-bearers to avert grouping in the party on the basis of minor issues.

Meanwhile, according to a statement, PPP general secretary Eng Mohammad Humayun Khan, information secretary Liaquat Shabab, Rahimdad Khan, Azam Afridi, Syed Ayub Shah, Farzand Ali Khan Wazir, Gohar Inqilabi, Shah Zulqarnain, Samiullah Khan, Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Tila Mohammad, Advocate Akbar Khan, Shazia Tahmas, Mehr Sultana and Naseeb Chand attended the meeting besides others.

The meeting decided that Syed Ayub Shah, Advocate Akbar Khan and Liaquat Shabab would supervise reorganisation of the party in Peshawar at ward, tehsil, union council and district levels.

Rahimdad Khan, Samad Khan Turo and Gohar Inqilabi will supervise reorganisation of the party in Mardan while for Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan divisions, the duty was assigned to Rahimdad Khan, Mohammad Humayun Khan and Farzand Ali Khan Wazir.

Another committee comprising Azam Afridi, MPA Sahibzada Sanaullah and MPA Mohammad Ali Shah would resolve issues among party workers in all districts of Malakand division while former governor Barrister Masood Kausar, Humayun Khan and Liaquat Shabab would reorganise the party in Kohat division.

Addressing the meeting, Humayun Khan said that all the committees would submit reports of their respective divisions timely so that complete list of new office-bearers could be sent to the party chairman within two months.

The committees were also asked to work for reorganisation of various sister organisations of PPP.

The meeting appointed Sarfaraz Jadoon as acting general secretary of the party in Abbottabad and Iftikhar Tanooli as senior vice president.

The participants of the meeting also expressed concerns over deteriorating law and order situation in the province and asked the government to provide security to people.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2016