The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Friday dissolved the party's previous organisation committees -- from the Centre to the tehsil level -- and announced the formation of a 21-member committee to oversee the party’s elections strategy in the future course.
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry made the announcement during a press conference in Islamabad, where he briefed reporters on the decision taken during a senior party leaders’ meeting that was presided over by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
During the meeting, Chaudhry said, the premier spoke to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mehmood Khan, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak and other party leaders regarding their poor performance in the KP Local Government elections.
In the recently concluded first phase of the LG polls, the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl outperformed the PTI by bagging at least 21 seats as compared to the ruling party's 16, according to the provisional results released by the Election Commission of Pakistan, including the seat of Peshawar mayor.
Speaking about the result, Chaudhry said that PM Imran had expressed dissatisfaction over the party’s dismal performance in the LG polls, adding that the party was waiting for the village polls results after which a complete report would be presented to the premier.
Moreover, he added that the PM Imran was concerned about complaints that party “tickets were distributed on the basis of family connections” and not merit.
“The PTI’s organisations did not show up in the K-P polls as they should have. The PM and PTI chairman [Imran Khan] after consulting all national party leaders has decided to dissolve all party organizations and for the time being the chief office bearers have been removed from their positions,” Fawad said.
He added that a new constitutional committee of PTI has been formed that would include all leading national leaders of the party. In this regard, he said it has also been decided a special committee would be formed in the federal that would decide the fate of the party ticket being given to a family member of a leader or not.
Moreover, for the next phase of K-P LG polls another committee comprising major leaders would be formed, he said, adding:
“For K-P, the committee would include will be Mehmood Khan, Pervez Khattak, Murad Saeed, Asad Qaiser, Ali Amin Gandapur. For Punjab, it would have Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Hammad Azhar, Fawad Chaudhry, Khusro Bakhtiar, Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar, Saif Niazi, Amir Kiyani, Usman Buzdar."
He also announced the names of members from Balochistan and Sindh, with Governor Imran Ismail and Ports and Shipping Minister Ali Zaidi to represent Sindh.
In addition to this, he said that Asad Umar would be from the federal capital.
"This committee is working on coming up with a new structure of the party," he added.
Fawad said that after after review of their suggestions, the new organisational structure would be put in place.
He added that a mechanism would be formed with the approval of the party chairman for the award of party tickets.
“This committee on the central level would decide on the candidates in order to end the reservations [of local leaders] at ground level,” he said.
To a question, he said that decision on the party's defeat would be taken after the submission of the complete report to the premier. He hailed the party as the "only national party of the coutnry" that does not promote family politics.
