LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has once again changed its plan of taking out its much-hyped rally from Gujranwala to Lahore, restricting it within the city limits — from Shahdara to Lahore High Court — on Sept 3.

According to sources, the PTI strategy committee meeting chaired by secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen at its Chairman’s Secretariat on Thursday discussed the earlier plan in the light of the party’s past experiences when the rallies failed to reach the destination as per the schedule.

Some other sources, however, claimed the plan had to be changed as the party’s Gujranwala leadership had expressed its inability to organise the rally. The leaders, however, said they would join the rally at Kala Shah Kaku or Shahdara.

The party has now planned a rally, to be led by Chairman Imran Khan, from Shahdara that was expected to reach Lahore High Court (GPO chowk) on The Mall in six to seven hours.

A PTI spokesperson relating past experience said the party’s long rally from Peshawar to Kahirabad, Attock, had become unmanageable. “The Peshawar rally was supposed to reach Khairabad at 7pm but it could reach there around 4am that kept the party workers waiting for hours,” the spokesperson said.

The strategy committee decided Shaukat Bhatti should be appointed as PTI Punjab central region secretary general. It also decided to divide Lahore district into urban and rural parts, agreeing that Waleed Iqbal should be urban Lahore president and Barrister Hammad Azhar secretary general.

For rural Lahore, the committee agreed to Zaheer Abbas and Ijaz Dyal, as president and secretary general, respectively. However, no notification was issued in this regard so far.

Mr Tareen asked the respective regional presidents to finalise candidates to complete party’s organisational structure as early as possible.

He said the party’s accountability movement would continue till the rulers would be held accountable for their “corruption and looting spree”. He reiterated the prime minister must answer to the allegations leveled in the Panama Leaks.

PTI Punjab central region president Abdul Aleem Khan vowed that the party workers would give tough time to the rulers. He said the ongoing rains had exposed Punjab government’s good governance claims.

PTI chairman’s advisor, Dr Yasmin Rashid, said the PML-N had been left with no option but to go through transparent and fair accountability. She said the PTI had finally come out on roads and now it would be difficult for the government to continue functioning.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2016