PESHAWAR: As intra-party tensions increase within the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N), the party’s former women’s wing organiser for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), Mariam Gandapur, said that according to PML-N regulations, fresh entrants cannot be appointed at high posts.
Addressing a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, Gandapur said that it is necessary for a member to be affiliated with the party for a minimum of 10 years before they are entrusted any role of importance.
She lashed out at Begum Tahira Bukhari and Begum Shaheen Habibullah, the provincial president and general secretary respectively, for the women’s wing.
She contended that both Tahira and Shaheen did not qualify for party offices. “Tahira was with the Pakistan Muslim League - Quaid (PML-Q) under an umbrella of dictatorship, for 11 years, and Shaheen joined the PML-N in 2009 as an Awami National Party (ANP) dissident,” she said.
Recently, the party leadership had notified a list of new entrants at district and provincial-level slots.
Gandapur claimed that both Tahira and Shaheen are part of adjustment tactics between party chief Nawaz Sharif, K-P President Pir Sabir Shah and Central Vice-President Amir Muqam. “They are not office bearers of the party in the real sense of the word,” she said.
“Nominating Tahira and Shaheen for party slots in the ‘muqam’ adjustment list is an unjust step taken at the cost of old party workers,” Gandapur said. “The new adjustment is a source of worry for many party workers.”
The PML –N leader said that the women’s wing has yet to be made in the province according to a plan sanctioned by party chief Nawaz Sharif, wherein the women wing units will be formed at the union council (UCs) level. The initiation of this plan was supposed to be given priority.
Giving details of the units, she said that 200 women will work for the party under the supervision of five women organisers.
“Why is the party leadership going against Sharif’s directives on the formation of a women’s wing?” she said. “We ask the party chief for justice. He should consider the services of old party workers who are suffering at the hands of new entrants.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2012.
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Yeah. Loyalty is everything, who cares about meritocracy.
The real face of "usooli" politics.