LAHORE: Tension within the Insaf Students Federation (ISF), Punjab, about its leadership persists despite formal notification by the party high command about two months ago.

A ‘disgruntled’ group of the ISF wants its leader’s nomination as president whereas the current president says he has no objection to fresh elections if the party higher-ups so desire.

As the matter surfaced again at a recent meeting, party’s General Secretary Jahangir Tareen directed the present leadership to resolve the tension.

“No adventurism is acceptable as the party is heading for a countrywide protest campaign from Aug 7,” a source quoted Mr Tareen as having told the youngsters. The source said party’s information secretary Naeemul Haq also endorsed it.

In May this year, Mr Haq had resolved the issue of the ISF Punjab leadership through a tweet, wherein he announced restoration of Waqas Iftikhar as ISF Punjab president. This was a time when PTI chairman Imran Khan had announced revival of all of its wings after postponement of the intra-party elections.

The disgruntled group says Mr Iftikhar’s second one-year tenure had completed and federation’s central president Arsalan Chaudhry had organised elections at the chairman’s secretariat in Lahore and Gulraiz Iqbal was elected with two-thirds majority. Soon afterwards, the PTI chairman had dissolved all its wings including the ISF in the wake of the intra-party elections.

Mr Iftikhar had, however, denied the authenticity of the election and filed a petition against the election with the PTI Election Commission. He had claimed that the then PTI election commissioner, Tasneem Noorani, had also not authenticated the election.

Following the meeting with Mr Tareen, Waqas Iftikhar has sent a message to the ISF members that “some conspirators are trying to divide the ISF and create lobbying and chaos on ground.” He warned the troublemakers against hatching conspiracies.

Speaking to Dawn, Mr Iftikhar confirmed that Mr Tareen and Mr Haq had asked him to continue working as president and persuade the disgruntled group to avoid creating problems within the ISF and for the PTI leadership.

Gulraiz Iqbal, who claimed that he was elected with two-thirds majority and earned the mandate of the ISF Punjab president, had told this reporter that he would go for fresh elections, if the central president would decide so.

Meanwhile, the ISF’s provincial leaders are expected to meet in Islamabad on Saturday (today) to discuss the federation’s issues.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2016