Imran asks Junaid to quit PAC office, focus on party

ISLAMABAD: Within four months after having been appointed as provincial president of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Public Accounts Committee chairman, Junaid Akbar has been asked by the party supremo Imran Khan to quit as the PAC head and focus on the party and the proposed movement.

Indisposed leader of opposition and senior party leader Omar Ayub Khan is being speculated as the potential candidate to replace Junaid Akbar as the PAC chairman. Last year in June, Omar Ayub had stepped down from the party post of secretary general, citing his pressing engagements as leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. When approached on telephone, PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram confirmed to The News that the founder chairman had directed Junaid Akbar to bow out as the PAC head and pay full attention to his party job as its provincial head.

However, some party insiders alleged that the incarcerated party founder was unhappy over his style of running the party in KP while sitting in Islamabad, whereas the party leader wanted to see him spending more time in the province, looking after the party’s organisational matters.

Junaid was elected unopposed as the PAC chairman on January 24 this year and next day, was also made chief of the party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, replacing Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur as the provincial head of the party. This change of party leadership in KP at that time was attributed to different factors, and one of them was the grouping in the province, concerning the PTI control.

It was learnt that a written message from the party founder had been sent to PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, asking Junaid Akbar to focus only on the party’s organisational affairs.

However, PAC Chairman Junaid Akbar reportedly denied having so far received any formal order from the party leadership to resign. But he explained that whenever the founder PTI says he will immediately leave the parliamentary post.

Meanwhile, talking to Geo News, Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan said her brother had given Junaid Akbar the task of starting the movement from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. She said that the PTI founder believes that time will be divided between the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and efforts for the movement; therefore, he decided to appoint someone else as the PAC head.