PESHAWAR: The angry Pakistan People’s Party activists on Saturday announced the formation of parallel organisational units in different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and demanded intra-party elections to free the party from ‘corrupt’ office-bearers.

The announcement was made during the PPP Workers’ Convention at the University Town here.

The organisers claimed party activists from 22 districts of the province participated in the convention and that they would implement decisions in their respective areas in letter and spirit.

Representatives of different sister organisations of the PPP came hard on the office-bearers for ‘exploiting’ workers during the previous government and said they won’t even shake hands with ‘selfish and corrupt’ people. Parallel organisations were announced for Peshawar and Nowshera districts to be followed by similar organisational units in other districts.

Say intra-party elections should be held to remove ‘corrupt’ office-bearers

The participants decided to announce the formation of the PPP provincial council and executive council and announced they would work for their strengthening so that the party could sweep the next elections.

Noted among speakers were former speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Abdul Akbar Khan, former federal minister Mian Muzaffar Shah, former district nazim Azam Afridi, Syed Ayub Shah, Saeed Ahmed Khan, Tahir Abbas and Abdullah Yousufzai.

They urged the party’s central leadership to take measures to address the declining popularity of the PPP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“We repeatedly appealed to the central leadership for holding intra-party elections but corrupt people were again named as office-bearers and thus, creating rifts in the party,” a resolution said.

The participants rejected the nomination of the PPP office-bearers and said they were not ready to sit with the people, who had damaged the party and hurt workers during the last government.

They said provincial PPP president Khanzada Khan had failed to give due respect to senior people of the party and therefore, all party offices should be filled through the workers’ votes.

By unanimously passing a resolution, the participants appealed to the central leadership to hold intra-party elections and save the party from further divisions insisting workers had already rejected the nomination of ‘some unpopular’ people for key positions.

“We are representatives of the PPP. We have the right to announce the formation of organisational units in all districts to strengthen party in the province. We can’t leave Bhutto’s party at the mercy of selfish and corrupt people,” a leader said.

He said the next convention of the PPP workers would take place in Charsadda on Sept 15, where local party office-bearers would be named and that it would be followed by similar functions in other districts, too.

Other speakers said they didn’t accept the decisions of Khanzada Khan and instead, they would follow the party’s manifesto only and would work for democracy.

On the occasion, Israr Khan Nahqai was named the party district president for Peshawar and Farooq advocate general secretary, while Tariq Khattak was made district president for Nowshera.

The speakers claimed they had already organised all units of People’s Students Federation, People’s Youth Organisation, People’s Labour Forum, People’s Doctors Forum, Women’s Wing and People’s Lawyers Forum.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2014