SWABI: Postponement of the intra-party elections has perturbed the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf workers and leaders here, sources in the ruling party told Dawn on Wednesday.

Talking to Dawn, they said over a week ago, PTI chairman Imran Khan had announced postponement of the intra-party elections, saying they wanted to focus on a proposed march towards the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Raiwind residence in Lahore to protest existence of offshore companies allegedly owned by his family revealed by the Panama Papers.

They said the party high command did not announce a new date for the polls which had caused confusion among the party leaders and workers. They said the intra-party polls were first scheduled to be held after the local government elections in KP, but they were delayed for three times afterwards, and now they had been postponed. They added that announcing and postponing election dates was not a good practice as it may dent the party’s reputation among the people.

Local PTI leaders said they wanted the high command to realise the importance of such elections because the interim setup could not be dragged for so long. They also complained that they had been directed not to run the election campaign, which they said was not possible in Pakhtun society. They demanded that the party announce a new date for the election.

While almost all the leaders are opposed to the postponement of the intra-party polls, a majority of them believes that the postponement is not because of the Panama Papers leak, but because of differences among the party’s central leaders, including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar and Jahangir Tareen. They hoped that the differences would be removed and a new date for polls would be announced.

On the other hand, a new group has emerged in the PTI in Swabi, which claims to have the strength to dislodge in the intra-party polls those who have been dominating party’s affairs since its inception.

A leader of the disgruntled group told Dawn that existing leadership of the party in the district had failed to deliver, that’s why they were going to face defeat in the polls.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2016