PESHAWAR: The disgruntled Pakistan People’s Party activists have rejected the formation of the coordination committee for the party’s re-organisation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and announced a panel to contest the intra-party elections.

The party leadership had formed a five-member coordination committee with former provincial president Rahimdad Khan as its head and Engineer Humayun Khan, Robina Khalid, Noor Alam Khan and Shazi Khan as members.

Addressing a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday, former MNA and candidate for the PPP provincial president’s office Tariq Khattak said the coordination committee was biased and therefore, workers felt it won’t dispense justice to them.

“We accept all decisions of the party chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and request him to dissolve the coordination committee because it has failed to play a neutral role within the stipulated three months period,” he said.

Mr. Khattak said his faction had named him for the election of the provincial president’s slot, while Abdullah Yousafzai would be the candidate for the general secretary’s office and Misbahuddin for information secretary’s.

He said the coordination committee’s three-month term had ended on July 16 but it had failed to contact all people in the party for reconciliation.

“Holding meetings with selected people shows that the coordination committee isn’t impartial in its intensions and acts,” he said.

The former MNA said PPP workers were committed to opposing the nomination of corrupt elements for the party’s offices in the province and that former ministers weren’t accepted to them as leaders.

“We will not cooperate with any of the new office-bearers in case anyone is nominated without consulting us,” he said, adding that workers were ready for intra-party elections.

Mr. Khattak claimed the party’s central leaders, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Yousaf Raza Gilani and Khursheed Shah, had agreed the workers’ demand for elections in the party.

On the other hand, the coordination committee insists a comprehensive report about re-organisation of the party will be submitted to the leadership soon.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2016