PESHAWAR: Upset by the growing infighting and delay in reorganisation, the PML-N leaders and activists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have begun raising voice for the holding of immediate internal elections.

According to insiders, the intra-party elections have been due for around a year with the central leadership delaying it citing unavoidable national issues as a reason.

A senior leader said the elections were delayed due to the existence of two major groups in KP and both were equally influential to the extent that PML-N central president Nawaz Sharif didn’t want to lose anyone of them.

Leaders call for immediate reorganisation of party

One group is led by Pir Sabir Shah and the other by Engineer Amir Muqam with supporters of both zealous to get their leaders appointed as the provincial president.

While eying the provincial president’s office, Mr. Muqam, who has been associated with the PML-N since 2012 when he quit the PML-Q, claims popularity among workers, while Pir Sabir Shah too insists most activists, especially those who remained loyal to the party during the Pervez Musharraf martial law, stand by him.

In a joint statement, several PML-N leaders belonging to different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including provincial senior vice president Waqif Khan, Peshawar district president Abdul Sattar Khalil, MPA Arbab Waseem and provincial vice president Ikhtiar Wali Khan, have demanded that the top leadership take notice of the uncertainty prevailing in the party’s provincial chapter and convene the provincial council meeting to decide about reorganisation.

Mr. Sattar told Dawn that the intra-party elections had been pending for one year the workers keen for the party’s early reorganisation.

He said the provincial council had the mandate to take decision on intra-party elections.

“It’s time that the central leadership play role for strengthening the party in the province on solid grounds,” he said.

When contacted, PML-N provincial general secretary Rahmat Salam Khattak said the delay in internal elections had a very negative impact on the party’s working in the province.

He said PML-N workers of all districts in the province had long been demanding the immediate holding of intra-party elections especially when the general elections were approaching fast.

Mr. Khattak said being a party activist, he was bound to participate in meetings and events organised by either of the two groups.

“I have nothing to do with any particular group and will serve the party in line with its ideology,” he said.

The PML-N leader said the votes polled in the last general elections showed that his was the second largest party in the province.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2016