ISLAMABAD: The differences between PTI Chairman Imran Khan and the party’s chief election commissioner for the intra-party polls Tasneem Noorani stood finally exposed on Saturday with the latter submitting his resignation from the office.

Besides Mr Noorani, sources in the party told Dawn, the election commissioners from Punjab and Sindh had also submitted their resignations to the party chairman because of differences over the mode of voting and procedure for nomination of candidates for the intra-party polls.

“The PTI chairman and the senior leadership of the party accepted the PTI CEC and some election commissioners’ resignation with regret, However, they resolutely decided that the intra-party elections would be held on schedule,” says an official announcement issued by the party’s central media cell after a meeting of the party’s senior leaders at the Bani Gala residence of Imran Khan here on Saturday.

It says that the party has appointed Senator Nauman Wazir, a member of the election commission from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as interim CEC. The vacant positions in the EC will be filled by March 31.

The statement says that Imran Khan and the party leaders “have always respected the jurisdiction of the EC and completely refrained from intervening in their domain”. Any interaction with the election commission, it said, was with the “intent of strengthening the institution of the EC”.

“However, the party was clear that it was its prerogative to decide what type of election would be held,” says the statement thus confirming the reports about the differences between Mr Noorani and other members of the EC with the PTI chairman.

A spokesman for the PTI, when contacted, said that Imran Khan and other senior members of the party were unhappy over Mr Noorani’s decision to quit without waiting for the outcome of Saturday’s meeting that had been convened to discuss the issues which had created a rift within the party.

He said Mr Noorani and other members had sent their written resignations to the party chairman in the morning even before the start of the meeting.

The sources said that Mr Noorani, a former bureaucrat, was of the opinion that every single office of the party should be contested whereas the PTI chairman wanted some nominations as well. They said a number of efforts were made in the past few months to resolve the differences, but all these attempts failed because of the non-flexibility shown by both sides.

They said the party was planning to hold intra-party elections sometime in May and was due to announce its schedule after completion of the membership drive by the end of this month.

The PTI had held its first intra-party polls in 2013. However, Imran Khan dissolved all organisations last year following complaints of massive rigging in the elections and in the light of recommendations of a two-member tribunal constituted under retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed to probe the charges of rigging and irregularities in the internal elections.

Later, Justice Wajihuddin expressed his reservations over non-implementation of certain recommendations of the tribunal. On March 22 last year, Imran Khan issued a notification stating that the tribunal stood dissolved after issuing its detailed judgment. However, Justice Wajihuddin was of the opinion that the tribunal would stay intact till complete implementation of its recommendations and that it could not be dissolved through such notification.

Differences between the two led to the suspension of the basic party membership of Justice Wajihuddin in August. The official PTI statement had said that the suspension had come on the heels of Imran Khan’s earlier notification stating that anyone discussing party matters in public would be suspended from party membership.

The statement said that Wajihuddin Ahmed had defied the notification and declared that he would continue to air internal party matters in public.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2016