Differences in Mansehra PPP: Body constituted to end rift over ticket distribution

MANSEHRA: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s senior members on Monday constituted a committee to end the rift over the distribution of tickets and other issues.

“We have constituted a 10-member committee which would meet party’s Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari seeking his intervention to bury the hatchets in Hazara,” Haq Nawaz Khan, the PPP’s expected aspirant from PK-38, told the meeting attended by party’s workers and local leaders here.

The meeting, chaired by Haq Nawaz, unanimously constituted a committee and decided to take up the issues with the party’s provincial president first. “The provincial general secretary Shujah Salim Khan and divisional president Malik Farooq have hijacked the party in the Hazara division and nominated district president Malik Mumtaz without taking the party’s local leadership and workers into confidence,” Haq Nawaz alleged.

He said the party had been divided into two groups owing to alleged personal vendetta and wrong policies being executed by the provincial general secretary and divisional president.“We want free and impartial elections ticket distribution at seven national and 17 provincial assemblies’ constituencies in Hazara,” he added.

Haq Nawaz said that workers rendered sacrifices and never bowed down before outside pressures should be awarded with tickets. “The party’s central command should immediately intervene and settle all differences before the start of the Feb 8 general election campaigns,” he suggested.

The reconciliation committee included Rustam Khan Swati, Mohammad Fareed, Malik Mir Afzal, Mukhtar Shuqaib, Iqbal Paswal, Jafar Yusuf Khan, Abdul Hameed Khan, Raja Zahid Shahid, Mohammad Osama, and Haq Nawaz Khan.

According to the sources, the process of awarding election tickets was being delayed due to internal differences. Some members feared the party might face a setback in the Feb 8 polling in the Hazara division if the leadership couldn’t settle those issues .