Taking it to the top: PPP K-P to discuss disgruntled workers with central leadership

Provincial info secretary says all efforts to resolve issues have failed.

PESHAWAR: It seems that all else has failed as now the Khyber-Pakhtunhwa (K-P) chapter of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will take up the issue of its disgruntled members with the central leadership.

PPP’s Information Secretary in K-P, Liaqat Shabab, told The Express Tribune that the party’s core meeting would be held in Karachi on Monday and will be attended by patron-in-chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

He said the party’s K-P president, Khanzada Khan, would discuss the conflict and increasing differences in the PPP’s provincial ranks with the patron-in-chief separately. He expected the disgruntled leaders to be issued show-cause notices for their actions, which include forming parallel district chapters.

Shabab claimed the party’s provincial leadership tried to resolve differences on several occasions, but to no avail. He blamed the attitude of the leaders, saying they would have responded positively if they were serious about ironing out the kinks in the relationship. “The opposing workers seem to have their own agenda,” he said.

“Many senior leaders tried to solve the issues, however, all such efforts led to nowhere.”

The provincial secretary added that an intra-party election was the main bone of contention between PPP’s office bearers and the disgruntled workers. He added that cabinet members of provincial president Khanzada Khan supported their demands for polls, however, senior leaders later decided it was unsuitable to hold intra-party elections across the country.

While the disagreements continue, discontented leaders are forming parallel units in the provincial capital and plan on forming separate chapters in other part of the province. Following a meeting on September 7, the “likeminded” leaders announced the formation of parallel party chapters in Peshawar and Nowshera.

Farooq Shah, the general secretary of the newly-formed Peshawar chapter, said a unit was formed for Peshawar Town IV. He expected that parallel district chapters would be formed for Towns II and III of the city after Eid.

Speaking about the rest of K-P, Shah said parallel chapters for other constituencies were being sorted out and will be formed in Swat soon. He claimed district chapters will also be established in Charsadda and Swabi after Eid.

The PPP leader said around 17 meetings had been held with provincial leaders to resolve the issue, but two former ministers, both part of Khanzada Khan’s cabinet, were misleading the party’s K-P president and not allowing matters to progress.

The cracks within the PPP’s K-P chapter emerged after the party’s crushing defeat in the 2013 general elections. Soon after the polls, the then provincial president Anwar Saifullah Khan stepped down and Khanzada Khan replaced him.

Several party stalwarts, including former K-P governor Barrister Masud Kausar, former assembly speaker Abdul Akbar Khan, former minister Lal Mohammad Khan,  former Peshawar nazim Azam Afridi, Syed Ayub Shah, Tariq Khattak, Mian Muzaffar Shah and others are among the disgruntled workers.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2014.