PESHAWAR: Serious internal differences still exist in Pakistan Peoples Party here though it succeeded to win two seats in the recent Senate elections from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Senior people in the party who had reservations about the slow pace of its reorganisation have started corner meetings separately, while in some areas parallel organisations have been announced.

The membership drive launched in January for one month is yet to be concluded. The provincial leadership was bound to submit the entire record of reorganisation to the party’s top leadership till end of February 2018, but the district level organisations are yet to return the membership forms.

During an interaction with a number of district level office-bearers, it was learnt that membership forms had been distributed among the workers, but the record was yet to be collected. They said that internal differences had led to delay in the submission of forms while many of the office-bearers did not know as to what was the last date for returning the record.

The PPP is supposed to compete with the rival political parties in the membership drive, reorganisation and selection of candidates, but it is yet to take these issues seriously.

No room for parallel organisations, warns Faisal Kundi

In Malakand district (Malakand Agency), the workers have formed parallel party structure in different tehsils though provincial president Mohammad Humayun Khan also belongs to the same area.

Party’s provincial general secretary Faisal Karim Kundi in a statement said here on Saturday that the party had already formed organisational structure in Malakand and there was no room for parallel organisations. He said that the provincial leadership had already announced names of the office-bearers and those involved in violation of party constitution would face disciplinary action. Referring to media reports, Mr Kundi said that former federal minister Lal Mohammad Khan was behind setting up of parallel organisations.

However, Lal Mohammad denied the charge, saying that about 2,000 people in a procession had come to his residence demanding intra-party elections as the sitting office-bearers were unable to strengthen the party. “I have not formed parallel organisations, but the demand for intra-party election is genuine in Malakand,” he argued.

The former lawmaker alleged that millions of rupees had been embezzled in the recent elections of Senate and he had demanded of the top leadership to order a probe into the matter. He alleged that the provincial leadership was not taking steps for strengthening of the party, but serving its own interests. He pointed out that the internal differences would worsen if tickets were awarded to incompetent people. He said that the provincial leadership had no sense about winning candidates which could easily be judged from the fact that 19 of 26 ticket-holders of nazims’ seats had lost the local government elections.

According to some other senior party leaders, the leadership had so far not awarded tickets to the candidates for the next general elections. It was learnt that of the aspiring candidates Asma Alamgir Arbab was the only female who was allowed by Asif Ali Zardari to contest the National Assembly election on general seat and thus she had launched her election campaign in Peshawar.

When contacted, Asma Alamgir said that she had always served PPP and would continue to work for it. “It is my association with the party that the National Accountability Bureau has started baseless inquiry against my family which is no more than political victimisation,” she alleged. She said that the inquiry initiated in 2015 was still going on. She added that her family was not involved in any kind of illegal business.

PPP provincial vice-president Syed Ayub Shah stressed the need for running the party as per its constitution to strengthen democratic culture and encourage ideological people in the party.

When contacted, party’s provincial deputy secretary information Gohar Khan Inqilabi admitted that the membership process was very slow. “The district presidents are supposed to expedite work on submitting the record to the provincial leadership,” he said and added that those involved in creating differences would have to face disciplinary action.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2018