PESHAWAR: The reorganisation of Pakistan Peoples Party has entered the second phase in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari interviewed the applicants a couple of days ago in Islamabad for seven divisions of the province who will be named soon, a reliable source said.

The reorganisation process has been restarted with a delay of four months as it was initially scheduled in Nov 2016, but the central leadership could not spare time to complete the process within its declared timeframe.

The delay has caused serious concern among the party workers in KP because other political parties have already started preparations for the next general elections, while PPP’s provincial chapter is unable to take any decision on its own and has to take dictations from the top hierarchy.

It was learnt that of the seven divisions, Malakand division had been divided into two organisational units, upper and lower, due to its vast area and population. The upper Malakand will include Upper Dir, Lower Dir and Chitral while the lower part includes Malakand Agency (protected area), Buner, Shangla and Swat districts.

As such, Malakand division will get two divisional presidents to properly focus on the party reorganisation there. The interviews were conducted in Islamabad wherein scores of applicants appeared for the key slots of divisional presidents, general secretaries and information secretaries with their CVs pertaining mainly to the family background, sacrifices for the party and those having good ideas. However, the decision, it was learnt, would be taken by the central leadership.

Similarly, Swat district will also get two presidents, one each for the upper and lower Swat. A candidate for divisional office told Dawn that all the candidates were anxiously waiting for the announcement to be made by Mr Bilawal next week. “Everyone is optimistic to be given a chance on the key seats,” the source said.

The schedule for interviews of the district level office-bearers is yet to be announced. The provincial leadership has time and again denied having any role in the selection of the next office-bearers.

The provincial leadership, meanwhile, is trying to remove the differences in the party ranks and that is why the disgruntled leaders, including former federal ministers Lal Mohammad Khan and Najamuddin Khan, also agreed to support Engineer Mohammad Humayun Khan as the provincial president.

Another former federal minister and PML-N leader Khawaja Mohammad Khan Hoti has also rejoined PPP and held a meeting with Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad.

In Peshawar, the party has lost three of its senior people to other parties. Of them, Ashfaq Khalil and Kifayatullah Orakzai have joined Awami National Party while former town-I nazim Shaukat Ali joined Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf. The provincial president could not be approached on phone for his comments. However, his personal secretary, Tariq Rahim, said that these people parted ways with PPP long ago and thus had always avoided attending party meetings. “We invited them for every meeting of the party, but they never showed up,” he said.

About the names of new possible divisional and district level presidents, he denied having any information. He also confirmed that applicants for the divisional level offices had appeared in interviews before the party chairman and the process of districts would be announced soon.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2017