HARIPUR: Federal Defence Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, president Pervez Khattak said here on Saturday that his party would emerge victorious with a sweeping majority in the next election as it was being strengthened at the grassroots level.

He was addressing the newly-elected village and neighbourhood councils (VC/NC) chairmen, councillors and party workers from different union councils here.

Mr Khattak said he took over the party’s command in the province in a difficult situation, but expressed his resolve to achieve the objective of uplifting PTI within next six months in such a way that it would clean sweep the next elections.

He said the first phase of local government elections was difficult due to multiple reasons, but the media and the opposition were attributing it to the public backlash against PTI.

Says party being strengthened at grassroots level

“It’s not correct to analyse that price hike and dearness proved detrimental to success of the ruling PTI, because it’s a global phenomenon,” he said.

The federal minister also criticised media for what he called media trial of Imran Khan and PTI and claimed it was highlighting the success of some opposition parties’ nominees in the recent phase of LG elections, but did not inform the people that PTI had emerged as the highest vote taking party.

About the PTI’s reorganisation,Mr Khattak said he was going to strengthen the party at grassroots level and all the new LG chairmen and councillors would constitute local committees, which would also include those PTI activsits who could not emerge victorious in the recent elections.

The party’s provincial president said the committee members would decide who should be their tehsil and district presidents. He said these grassroots level committees would also recommend future development schemes.

Later, the newly-elected VC/NC chairmen, councillors and political activists also announced to join PTI. Federal minister Omar Ayub Khan and MNA Saleh Mohammad Khan were prominent among those who spoke on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2022