LAHORE, Oct 15: Controversy sparked within the information cell of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf has taken a new turn as party’s leadership in Punjab has teamed up with party’s Punjab media coordinator and shown displeasure at a move by the central information secretary.
PTI’s Punjab media coordinator Javed Badr had on Saturday pointed a finger at central information secretary Shafqat Mahmood for the dwindling popularity graph of the party in the media. He also alleged that Mr Mahmood’s relations with most media persons were no more pleasant.
Also alleging that Mr Mahmood was fanning grouping within the party and ignoring all recommendations to improve party’s image in media, Badr had demanded that party chief Imran Khan should announce holding elections within media cell like all other party wings.
Meanwhile, the PTI central media cell had quickly responded that Mr Badr was fraudulently posing himself as party’s media coordinator and issuing press releases. “Any news release issued by Mr Badr should not be taken as a reflection of PTI policy as he has not been mandated to do so,” the media cell had stated.
Shafqat Mahmood had told Dawn on Saturday that Mr Badr was an All-Pakistan Muslim League dissident and was trying to penetrate into the ranks of PTI media cell. “He may be a `planted’ person and tasked by an agency to create rifts.”
Mr Badr, meanwhile, took his case to PTI Punjab leadership that met here on Monday and passed a unanimous resolution slamming email and press release issued by party’s central media cell against Mr Badr.
The resolution signed by Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali, Umer Sarfraz Cheema, Amin Zaki, Dr Shahid Siddique, Muhammad Madni (youth wing), Babar Mehdi (cultural wing), Muhammad Rafique Nisar (labour wing) and Saadia Suhail (women wing) stated: “It is very bad to mention that party’s central media cell issued an email and press release to all media with serious allegations against Mr Javed Badr, which are baseless.”
The resolution also drew the attention of PTI leadership to look into the matter and review the performance of party’s central media cell, “which was not showing any performance and instead propagating against a sincere worker like Javed Badr, who had done a great job for the party”.
The party leaders also acknowledged that Mr Badr was a sincere worker of PTI and had been coordinating with all the media for the last six months.
Mr Badr told Dawn that he had emailed the scanned copy of the resolution to all PTI leaders, including Imran Khan.
Admitting that he had no official notification about his role as media coordinator, Mr Badr said it was his democratic right, even as a party worker, to demand elections in party’s media cell as well.
Answering a question, PTI central information secretary Mr Mahmood said party’s all central leaders as well as Punjab’s information secretary positions were still intact. “The party chairman also has the authority to nominate officials for certain party offices, including central information secretary. The party’s central executive committee later approves such nominations,” he added.