KARACHI: City Council members of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), who were expelled by the PTI last week for defying directives from party founder Imran Khan by abstaining from the mayoral elections over two years ago, insisted on Tuesday that they remained loyal to Imran Khan and continued to consider themselves part of the party.

More than that, they accused the current PTI leadership of being “fake office-bearers”.

Parliamentary leader of the PTI in the City Council Asad Aman, while addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club, claimed that the party currently had no constitutional or organisational structure.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), he said, had already annulled PTI’s intra-party elections before the general elections.

Although fresh intra-party polls were held after the general elections, the ECP had neither approved nor rejected them, he added.

“When there is no constitutional structure in place, who are these fake office-bearers issuing us expulsion notices?” Asad Aman questioned.

He asserted that only Imran Khan, the party’s chairman, had the authority to decide their political future.

“Once he is released from jail, we will present our case before him, and whatever he decides will be acceptable to us,” he added.

The PTI last week expelled 32 of its City Council members from the party for defying directives issued by party founder Imran Khan by abstaining from the polling process — a move that ultimately paved the way for Barrister Murtaza Wahab to become Karachi’s first-ever mayor from the Pakistan Peoples Party.

The PTI described the action as part of its “renewed campaign” to enforce discipline and send a clear message that those who defied Mr Khan’s directives had no place in the party.

However, Mr Aman, accompanied by UC Chairman Salman Khan and City Councillor Uzair Ahmed Siddiqui, said that a “Q-League group” had taken control of the PTI, saying that these were the people who had changed multiple parties over the time, and now they were “lecturing us on loyalty”.

He said that he and his colleagues remained loyal only to Imran Khan and no other leader.

“For us, Imran Khan is everything in the party,” he said.

“We were elected because of Imran Khan, and if he asks us to resign tomorrow, we will do so without a second thought.”

Mr Aman said the expelled members still considered themselves genuine workers of the PTI and dismissed the authority of the current leadership.

“Those sitting in power today are fake office-bearers who do not represent the vision of our founder,” he remarked, adding that their allegiance to the PTI was tied solely to Imran Khan’s leadership and ideology.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2025