ISLAMABAD: The two factions of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), fiercely fighting the election to the office of the party president of Punjab, have ferociously locked horns in a way as if they belong to bitterly opposed political parties.
Ironically, except PTI Chairman Imran Khan all the topmost leaders, who are close to him, often advise him on key matters and are carefully listened to by him, are direct active players in this tussle before he intervened for damage control and scrapped the election to avoid widening of fissures.
Such intense open confrontation has never been witnessed in intra-party election of any political party. It has been simmering since long, but became open as one faction harshly publicly attacked the other. The situation became alarming after one side released its pent-up sentiments against the other.
As it caused embarrassment, the PTI chief was forced to do the firefighting before the clash turned more lethal and disastrous. It is an open question and will be clear in the days to come how far he has been successful in his bid to calm down the two clusters, known as ‘ideological’ and ‘unity’ groups, led by Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen/ Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar respectively.
One bloc accuses the other of manipulating the election on the force of money. “Within the PTI, a group has emerged that wants to influence everything with the power of its money,” an otherwise careful Qureshi has stated. “The workers’ ideology will defeat the power of money.”
He openly supports Shafqat Mehmood for the Punjab presidency and is lobbying for him. Hamid Khan, Saifullah Niazi, Dr Yasmeen Rashid and Waleed Iqbal also stand with him.
Both the candidates for the position of the Punjab president, Chaudhry Sarwar and Shafqat Mehmood, are not known to have close contacts with people at the grassroots level, and have no experience to chair any party in the majority province, which matters much than other provinces in any general elections.
Prominent PTI leader Ijaz Chaudhry, who effectively ran the party for at least three years and belongs to the grassroots level, is indifferent to the ongoing combat. He is not part of the campaign being spearheaded by the two groups to win the election, which were due in June in which the party workers will cast their votes.
He doesn’t figure in the PTI’s scheme of things for hailing to the middle class although he is a hardcore political worker, staunchly associated with the PTI for several years.
Although Jehangir Tareen has announced not to vie for any party office, he backs Chaudhry Sarwar to become the president of Punjab and is strongly opposed to Qureshi and his choice for Punjab, Shafqat Mehmood.
Noted PTI leader Abdul Aleem Khan, who once aspired to be Punjab chief, stays on the sidelines in the current fracas. It is not known as to which side he stands with. He is in the background since long as far as the PTI politics is concerned.
A PTI insider told The News on condition of anonymity that Jehangir Tareen had won the support of two groups of the party workers or voters in Multan while he was working on the third faction. “My reckoning is that his successful campaign in the native city of Qureshi, Multan, deeply incensed him because he thought that Tareen has intervened in his domain.”
While the internal strife is concentrated in Punjab, there is no such hullabaloo in other provinces. Even otherwise, the PTI is famous for inner tussles, which are exposed at different times and continue to hurt it.
When the PTI held its first-ever intra-party election in 2012, the exercise was marred with serious allegations of use of money and influence. A report prepared by Justice (R) Wajihuddin Ahmed in the process, which gave graphic details of grave manipulations, is instructive in this connection. It had recommended expulsion of some key leaders of the party for committing illegalities and corruption. However, none of his proposals was accepted. Instead, Wajihuddin Ahmed was ousted.
More recently, PTI Chief Election Commissioner Tasneem Noorani and two of his deputies stepped down under protest after Imran Khan did not accept their recommendations that direct election to all the tiers of the party from top to bottom should be held. The party chief stood for such election only to a couple of selected positions, giving the newly-elected office-bearers authority to nominate others. After that Imran Khan nominated another party leader as the central election commissioner.