Internal dissensions: PTI youth activists disgruntled by ticket allocation

Say the promise of giving 25% tickets to young workers has not been fulfilled.

PESHAWAR:

The Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf’s (PTI) Youth Wing has accused the provincial leadership of ignoring young party workers in the ticket allocation process.

In a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday, PTI Youth Wing Provincial General Secretary Amjad Akbar Orakzai said the provincial leadership has denied giving 25% party tickets to youth in Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) where party tickets were given to those candidates who had recently joined the party.

He said the party chief Imran Khan had pledged to give 25% of the party tickets to the youth.



According to this, the youth should be given seven tickets for National Assembly seats and one provincial assembly seat from each district.

However, the Provincial Parliamentary Board members had only given a ticket to the PTI Youth Wing Provincial President Sajjad Fayaz and ignored other potential young candidates.

“Ignoring old party workers and considering only the new entrants will have really bad consequences for the party in the elections,” said Orakzai.

Youth Wing (Peshawar district) President Sajjad Bangash, Region President Fahad Khan Doranpur and former youth wing Peshawar president Shams Uddin were also present on the occasion.

Addressing the press conference, they questioned the party’s slogan of ‘anti-status quo’ and ‘change’ and said by giving party tickets to those who had recently joined the party and ignoring old party workers the provincial leadership have proved otherwise.

Asking the leadership to take notice of favouritism in the tickets allocation process, they said if decisions were not made on merit the party will not produce desired results in the upcoming elections.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2013.