Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The traditional zeal and fervour in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) workers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) was missing during the “Ehtisab Rally” that started from Peshawar on Sunday and gathered at Khairabad in Attock.

The workers of the party from all over the districts and southern division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) reached the bridge late in the morning in groups but they lacked the vigour they had been displayed during the Islamabad sit-ins in the past.

Most of the PTI activists who participated in the rally did not have any clear vision about the purpose and objectives behind the rally against corruption. Some of them said they were being brought to join the rally without their will and wish.

The workers of different areas of district Peshawar lashed out at their own leaders while waiting for their leadership on the bridge in the scorching August heat. They said that the leaders were waiting in their air conditioned vehicles for the party chief Imran Khan to arrive without any regard for the poor party activists.

Shah Wali, a resident of Bakhsho Pul area in Peshawar, while expressing his ignorance about the purpose of the protest rally said that a local party activist from his village requested him to join the rally.

He said that the provincial lawmakers of the PTI were as corrupt as they blamed the members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. He added he had seen their corruption during the past three years of their rule in the province.

“Many of my friends have already lost their faith in the PTI and have quit the party,” he said.

Shah Wali maintained his friends happily participated in the almost four-month long sit-in Islamabad but this time they have lost their interest. Islam Shah, a resident of PK-2 constituency, wherefrom Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Shaukat Yousafzai got elected said that the lawmaker had neither informed them nor visited their village to ask people to join the much-trumpeted Tehreek-e-Ehtisab rally of the PTI. He said that he along with a few friends came to join the rally for the sake of fun and to see Imran Khan.

Another PTI worker from Peshawar lamented at the performance of the provincial ministers and said that a rally should be taken out against the PTI leaders too for ignoring the party workers for over three years. Ahmad Ali, another PTI supporter and a resident of Bana Manri area in Peshawar, said that the workers on the road and the PTI MPAs and leaders in their air-conditioned cars, clearly signified the difference of class and a relation of worker with his leader.

One of the disgruntled MPAs, Yasin Khalil, told Daily Times that members of the pressure group joined the campaign because they were also against corruption whether committed by the PML-N leaders or by the PTI. He said, “Look at these people. Do they look like charged activists?” He added, “The less number of people show that the PTI is losing its manpower with each passing day. This is what makes me and other members of our group worried.” He said that he and his colleagues were fighting to restore the real PTI with through which it got the mandate in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Many of the district council’s women representatives as well MPAs were also absent during the rally. A woman MPA, pleading anonymity, said that she tried her best to persuade women workers in the district to participate in the rally but failed to do so. She added one of the main reasons behind the little woman participants could be the past incidents of misbehavior with women activists during the PTI rallies.