RAWALPINDI: The erstwhile office-bearers of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) local chapters are up in arms against a party decision to dissolve the party’s district, tehsil and union council-level bodies, demanding that party chief Imran Khan constitute an inquiry committee and restore them.

This is the second time this year that the party organisation in Rawalpindi district has been reshuffled. Three months ago, former district president Haroon Hashmi was replaced by Zahid Kazmi.

But after he was removed alongside the office-bearers of the party’s district, tehsil and UC chapters, Mr Kazmi wrote to the party chairman, informing him that around 500 members of the local chapter were against the move.

The former PTI district chief confirmed to Dawn that he had written to Mr Khan to complain about the dissolution of the party’s organisational structure without giving any reason.

Ex-district president writes to Imran Khan; PML-N and PPP wooing possible defectors

In the letter, Mr Kazmi states: “I made the team of party workers and notified as per law of the party. More than 500 party workers and supporters [were] accommodated in the district team, but the Punjab north regional president had [taken a] humilating action. The party workers need your attention into the matter to save the party in the district. There is a need to form a committee for an impartial inquiry.”

The dispute between the district and regional chapters arose when the former made appointments without the approval of the Punjab (North) Regional President Aamer Kiani.

Although the regional chapter had barred the district presidents from making further appointments without their approval, the district chapter appointed over 2,000 people in different capacities at the tehsil and UC levels. Following an Imran Khan-ordered inquiry, Mr Kiani dissolved the party’s district setup.

However, Mr Kazmi insisted that all the appointments were made as per rules and there was no need to consult the regional president. He said that the party was already facing problems in the district due to differences this move would only serve to further divisions within the party.

He said that the party leadership failed to understand the nature of local politics and had turned into a traditional political party, where conspiracies are hatched by some “black sheep”.

Mr Kazmi said he was scheduled to meet with Imran Khan in a couple of days and would apprise him of the situation.

A senior party leader told Dawn the PTI was already divided into three groups in Rawalpindi, adding that this latest move had created another division.

The PTI leader said that all groups wanted their own people to be installed as office-bearers ahead of the next general elections.

“The party’s MPAs are in one group, then there are the Sadaqat Abbasi and Sarwar Khan groups. But after this latest action, a new group led by Zahid Kazmi has also emerged,” he said.

He said the party’s city chapter had been dysfunctional for a year now, since former city president Chaudhry Asghar was in the UK and nobody had replaced him. MPA Arif Abbasi has also been abroad for the past two months is likely to return in the winter or closer to the general elections, he said.

In absence of these figures, the PTI leader said the party was being running by the district chapter, and its dissolution had distressed party workers and supporters since they no longer have any means of direct contact with the party leadership.

Opportunism

This disunity among the PTI’s ranks has given the ruling PML-N and opposition PPP an opportunity to rope in activists they had earlier lost to the PTI fold.

“We had contacted Babu Idress and other main figures from the cantonment areas and asked them to come back to the party,” PPP city spokesman Nasir Mir said.

Former PML-N MNA Malik Shakil Awan also told Dawn that many PTI workers and supporters were in touch with the PML-N and were expected to join the party soon. “The party will respect them as political workers,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2017