PESHAWAR: Serious differences have surfaced in Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Peshawar chapter, where some senior office-bearers have started accusing each other of conspiring against the party and urged the top leadership to intervene and take action.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Saturday, party’s Peshawar district senior vice-president Zakaullah Khan Surizai said that PML-N provincial secretary information Nasir Musazai had expelled him from the party while he was not authorised to do so.

“I had fully supported Nasir Musazai when he was PML-N candidate in the by-election for NA-4, Peshawar, but he forgot the efforts we had made for his success,” Mr Zakaullah said.

He claimed that Mr Musazai was a member board of directors of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) who controlled power outages in NA-4 before the election to appease the voters, but after the defeat the duration of outages had been increased in the constituency.

Mr Zakaullah said that he was among the first ones to oppose the power loadshedding because taking revenge from the voters by subjecting them to outages was immoral and thus Mr Musazai got infuriated over his stand. He alleged that Mr Musazai was an industrialist and as Pesco BoD member he got the opportunity to evade taxes and penalties on outstanding utility bills which further damaged the party.

“I want the party leadership to order probe into the allegations levelled by Mr Musazai against me. I will produce solid proofs about his corruption, if given a chance,” he said and urged party president Nawaz Sharif to order probe into distribution of power transformers and illegal supply of power.

Mr Zakaullah said that under the party constitution only the district president could issue him a show-cause notice. He threatened to start observing a sit-in outside the press club in Islamabad if the PML-N top leadership did not take notice of the prevailing differences.

When contacted, Nasir Musazai said that Mr Zaka had not association with the party because he had supported the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf candidate in the by-election. He said that the party office-bearers had been reshuffled and now he (Zaka) held no office in the party. He claimed that the duration of loadshedding had been increased due to some development work to change the existing supply lines and control power theft.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2018