PTI issues gag orders to critics within its ranks

ISLAMABAD: A stream of emails from a diverse shade of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has annoyed the leadership, compelling the party’s Central Disciplinary Committee to issue ‘gag orders’ to check this trend from intensifying after some recent key appointments at the top level.

The hitherto hardly known Central Disciplinary Committee (CDC) issued the order on June 26, which has been now uploaded on the party’s website dating July 2. Arshad Dad is its convener and Tipu Sultan member.

The prime target of emails, which keep on circulating among the PTI activists, include newly-appointed Vice-Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Secretary Jehangir Tareen, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and some others.

Already, some key leaders were sidelined one way or the other for either raising their voice for fairness and transparency or declining to take dictation from the PTI leadership on matters needed to be handled independently, a source close to these leaders told this correspondent.

He said the fate of Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmad, the party’s chief election commissioner, Tasneem Noorani and Director General KP Ehtesab Commission Hamid Khan can be cited here in this context.

Justice Wajih was rendered dormant on the controversial intra-party polls, Noorani resigned after he refused to agree to the PTI leadership’s suggestions on how the second party polls were to be held and Hamid bowed out following amendments to the Ehtesab law through an ordinance, which he saw as an attempt to undermine the accountability process.

“While the CDC is not obliged to answer personal emails unless a formal case is launched and accepted by the CDC forum, it chooses to caution certain individual emails that use derogatory/inappropriate remarks against Chairman Imran Khan. Some of the dispatches have been persisting for a long time now and have indeed resulted in harming the party even more than what the party’s sworn political opponents could achieve,” the order said.

The CDC noted that it was also surprising that the essence of these mails sought to marginalise the persona of party’s founder and chairman as well as blatantly challenging his decisions constantly over a long time now. The PTI’s interest had, therefore, been seriously infringed upon repeatedly.

“Whereas the PTI affords constructive criticism more than any other political party yet in all political fairness it should remain within the accepted norms of purpose. The CDC does not wish to repeat such unfortunate intimidating language which is replete in scores of emails by few individuals who have never had any personal positive contribution towards the progress and growth of the party. In fact some of main architects of this rather negative phenomenon are not even in Pakistan,” the committee said.

The order says the foundations of the biggest political entity in Pakistan — the PTI, therefore, could not rest as an edifice on negative generation of few emails that seek to spread pessimism from distant locations overseas and that take pleasure in disrespecting its very founder and leadership.

It pointed out that some of the mails constantly challenge the decisions of the chairman while being completely dormant to work for the party’s progress. The language and thrust of these mails have been below any acceptable standards of norms of political intercourse.

“The CDC is not mandated to question the decisions of the chairman nor can any outfit afford any loaded disrespect for its chain of command and authority that hampers the efficiency fueling willful slanderous trends,” the committee said.

The CDC, therefore, has decided to impose caution on authors of such infamous communications that are counterproductive to the overall interest of the party. Let it also be known that the CDC has decided to evaluate all such emails. Specific observations and decisions shall be announced/communicated to particular individuals very soon, it said.