TOBA TEK SINGH: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) district organisation has issued show-cause notice to Riaz Fatyana, the party’s human rights wing central chairman, for violation of party discipline.

Issuing the notice here on Saturday, PTI district organiser retired Maj Ahmad Nawaz said that Fatyana met Hamza Shahbaz Sharif without taking the party leadership into confidence at a time when PP-89 by-election was in progress.

It asked Fatyana to explain why he met Hamza Shahbaz and why he withdrew his nomination papers for the seat at the last moment when he was nominated by a majority vote of the Selection Board.

The ex-MNA also spoke to the media on Friday and said he would support independent candidate Ms Sonia Ali Raza, daughter of the late Makhdoom Ali Raza. “Supporting an independent candidate against the PTI’s nominee is a gross violation of the party discipline and by doing so he is helping the PML-N candidate win the election,” reads the notice which asked Fatyana to reply till 3pm on Sunday otherwise the party would recommend appropriate action against him to chairman Imran Khan.

Meanwhile, at a press conference on Saturday evening, Ahmad Nawaz, former district nazim Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq, PTI’s Pirmahal tehsil organiser Dr Kashif Riazullah (nephew of Chaudhry Sarwar) and PTI’s defeated PP-89 (2013 election) candidate Mian Akhtar Javed claimed that the party had recommended name of Ms Sonia Ali for PTI ticket to the high command as desired by Fatyana and Chaudhry Sarwar had also finalised her name though conditionally but she opted to contest as an independent candidate.

On the other hand, a group of PML-N parliamentarians claimed on Saturday that their candidate Begum Fauzia Khalid Warraich (UC 10 chairperson-elect) would win the slot of district council chairperson.

They claimed that their group had the support of 57 elected union council chairmen out of the 85 in the district.

A few days ago, another group of the ruling party MPs including Junaid Anwaar Chaudhry, Mian Muhammad Rafiq, retired Col Sardar Ayub Gadhi (Rajana) and Amjad Ali Javed (Toba) had claimed support of 50 UC chairmen.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2015