RAWALPINDI: Due to grouping among the local leaders, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has failed to finalise a name for the president of its Rawalpindi chapter.

A senior leader of the PPP told Dawn that the party chairman had formed a five-member committee, consisting of Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Chaudhry Farooq, Nadeem Afzal Chan, Nadeem Asghar Kaira and Chaudhry Manzoor, to finalise the names of the new office-bearers after taking the workers on board.

However, he said the committee failed to choose the president of the Rawalpindi chapter due to differences among the local leaders and decided to seek the help of the party chairman.

“In the past, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto consulted senior party workers and leaders in the city and finalised the name but this time the party leadership constituted the committee, consisting of the five senior members, but they failed to reach a consensus on the name,” he said.

He said the committee members also failed to gather the workers at one place.

“Three different functions were held in the garrison city. The group led by Amir Fida Paracha invited the committee members to a private marriage hall in the afternoon of August 11. The committee consulted the workers belonging to the Babar Jadoon group at night the same day while the third group met the committee members a day ago at a hotel in Islamabad.”

He said the committee members were confused and could not choose a candidate from the three groups and decided to consult the party chairman for the final decision.

“The members will forward three names to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari who will appoint one of them as the president of the PPP Rawalpindi.”

He said Chaudhry Iftikhar, Asad Pervaiz and Babar Jadoon were the candidates for the post but all of them failed to get more than 4,000 votes in the 2013 general elections. It would be difficult for the party to get the old workers united under the leadership of these candidates, he added.

When contacted, PPP local leader Shujaat Haider Naqvi said the committee listened to the workers’ suggestions for the improvement of the party organisation and decided to prepare a list of three candidates to be sent to the chairman to select one of them as the president of the PPP Rawalpindi.

He said the workers were consulted but separately, adding the party leadership should unite the workers otherwise the next general elections would also be lost in the garrison city. He said due to the divisions within the party, the PPP lost the Azad Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly seats from Rawalpindi.

Former opposition leader in the Rawal Town and PPP leader Nasir Mir was of the view that the senior party leaders should go to the houses of old party workers if they wanted to improve the party organisation.

“Before the appointment of the new office-bearers in the past, the party used to invite the senior leaders and old workers to Zardari House or the PPP central office.”

He said the PPP Rawalpindi was divided in groups which would create problems for the party in the coming days. He said the party votes in the city reduced from 50,000 in the 2001 general elections to only 4,000 to 5,000 votes in 2013 and it would further decrease if the local leaders remained divided.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2016