PTI remains split over future course of action

• Core committee meeting ends after two days without adopting any recommendations • Participants demand removal of NA opposition leader, dissolution of political committee, changes in decision-making procedures • Gohar says Achakzai will remain, opposes calls to form fact-finding committee ISLAMABAD: The PTI core committee met for eight hours over the past two days but failed to decide on a future course of action, as several recommendations, including the formation of a fact-finding committee, put forward by the committee members could not be adopted due to the top leadership’s refusal to hold a vote. A participant told Dawn that the huddle discussed why the protest march led by non-functional Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi failed, the role of Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) Chairman Mahmood Khan Achakzai and the party’s decision-making process.

According to the PTI leader, during the discussion, it was claimed that there was a large number of workers in Charsadda, but that the number decreased in Mardan and there were no arrangements in Swabi. Some participants alleged that Sohail Afridi was responsible for the failure, but others questioned the role of the PTI core and political committees and said why the core committee took seven days to call its meeting. Some members said the party was not functioning as per its charter and a ‘supra committee’ of five members had been taking all decisions and suggested the dissolution of the political committee. One of the members said Imran Khan had set up a 14-member apex committee as well as the core committee. The apex committee was later turned into the political committee and many more members were added before it was dissolved and a new one was formed, while the core committee’s meetings were…