MUZAFFARABAD, July 9: Nomination of district and city level and some central office-bearers has apparently widened the division in the ranks of the main opposition People’s Party in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (PPAJK). The nominations were reportedly made by the PPP’s central secretary-general Jehangir Badr on the recommendations of PPAJK president Sahibzada Ishaq Zaffar and secretary-general Chaudhry Mohammad Yasin.

However, the PPAJK president and secretary-general were the target of criticism by a disgruntled leader who accused them of “misleading the PPP high command and thus laying the basis for party’s defeat in the next AJK general elections”.

“We cannot accept the reorganization of the party and declare a revolt against Mr Zaffar and Mr Yasin for their anti-party and anti-worker policies,” said former PPAJK deputy chief organizer Shaukat Javed Mir, who could not retain his office in the reorganization.

“It is unfortunate that instead of uniting party workers in view of the upcoming elections in the AJK, the two leaders had created a wedge among them for personal gains,” he alleged.

Mr Mir, who has faced detentions in different prisons of the country for his association with People’s Party, said he was at a loss to understand that why Mr Zaffar and Mr Yasin were “bent upon grinding down the devoted party workers”.

He said he would apprise PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto of the situation. “She is my ideal and my leader and only her decision will be acceptable to me.”

Separately, a number of former office-bearers of the Muzaffarabad chapter pf the PPAJK also rejected the reorganization.

Addressing a press conference at the press club on Saturday, Khaliqur Rehman Javed, Chacha Mehr Bux, Syed Manzoor Shah, Saeed Mughal, Asad Habib Awan and others said the “so-called reorganization” was bound to dent the party’s popularity.