A silent tug-of-war in PTI goes on

ISLAMABAD: Interesting times are ahead for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), as a silent tug-of-war goes on among some key leaders for power and authority in the party and it is feared to affect finalisation of candidates for the general elections.

Background interviews with some well-informed party leaders confirm that things are not as rosy as they may appear. Trust deficit is one major factor, which has also played a role in the creation of this situation. So much so, two senior-most leaders i.e. Vice-Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi and former secretary general of the party Jehangir Tareen find it hard to be on one page on policy decisions. “Yes, the situation is not very good, as both of these have their own separate set of proposed candidates for each constituency,” conceded the PTI sources.

Differences will unfold strongly when the party’s parliamentary board will sit down to finalise the candidates for both the national and provincial levels. Moreover, there is a move mostly by Islamabad-based leaders, who are legislators as well, to get installed the hitherto dormant Saifullah Niazi as secretary of the parliamentary board, which has been resisted by Tareen and other like-minded individuals.

Qureshi is reportedly upset over Tareen’s decision to seek closure of two relocated sugar mills, believed to be owned by the Sharifs for the closure has hurt the cane growers (sugarcane lobby) very badly and it has not gone well with the local PTI supporters too. Moreover, the PTI Chairman Imran Khan listens more carefully to what Tareen says. Interestingly, he had invited some close party leaders to a dinner in connection with his wedding with Bushra Maneka on Sunday night and the one conspicuous by his absence was the veteran politician of Multan. There is a feeling in the party that Qureshi is not active in the PTI as he used to be three months back.

Qureshi missed the entire National Assembly session, prorogued on February 20, though he was present during a parliamentary party meeting, held at Banigala. Then again, there is grouping among senior leaders, stationed in central Punjab and of course in Sindh and Karachi in particular. Seasoned politician Liaquat Ali Jatoi’s entry into the party has also led to an uneasy situation for some party leaders.

Noted constitutional expert and now a senior PTI leader Naeem Bokhari also very recently in an interview to a private television channel gave a partial picture of what was going on inside; he said that Senior Vice-President Hamid Khan dislikes Tareen extremely, as he thinks he has caused immense damage to the party and that he has cornered Imran, keeping him away from workers. Bokhari also says that in his view, Tareen also hates Hamid Khan as much.

“I once talked to Imran and proposed to him to hand over the party to the young generation and that Tareen is not the young general…they are young girls and boys, who are the core strength of PTI,” Bokhari also said about his meeting with the PTI chairman.

Bokhari was daring to indirectly object to naming of Tareen’s son, Ali, for the Lodhran by-election, when he said that the party could not find a single person in a constituency, who could have been fielded from Lodhran in the recently-held by-poll. Ali lost to the PML-N candidate by a massive margin of 27,000.

When approached, a senior party leader, who is close to Imran, did not agree with this correspondent that differences among certain party leaders were marring the party and could affect the PTI in general elections. However, he conceded that a tinge of difference of opinion on issues was the beauty in a democratic party like the PTI.

He also defended Qureshi’s not-so-active few months and said first, the veteran politician was busy in the marriage of his son and then had some other matters to handle in his own constituency. He insisted that Imran commanded full authority in the party and made decisions after consultations. About Imran’s one of the most trusted aides, Naeemul Haq, he said he was facing some health issues and spent most of his time in Karachi for this purpose and there was nothing beyond that, as he enjoyed his status as personal staff officer of the chairman and hardly missed any important event.