Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is reportedly in trouble due to infighting and a senior party leader is going to quit the party soon, said the sources.

There are reports that a party leader has bought a helicopter to oblige party chief Imran Khan and compete with the rival party member Jahangir Khan Tareen, sources told Daily Times.

According to the sources, PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi is out of country and his fellow party member Chaudhry Sarwar, former governor of Punjab, is already in London. Qureshi and Sarwar don’t have cordial relations with each other, but now both of them are not happy with the party leadership. They feel that their decisions are being ignored.

Qureshi was nominated member of the parliamentary committee, which suggested names of people for appointment as members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). He had meetings with opposition leader Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah and gave the name of Tariq Khosa, former director general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), for appointment as a member of the ECP from Punjab. He proposed Khosa’s name after consultations with party chief Imran Khan.

However, some PTI leaders contacted Shah and expressed their reservations about Khosa’s appointment as a member of the ECP. When Shah told the PTI leaders that Khosa’s name was proposed by Qureshi, they said that party leaders had differences over Khosa’s nomination as a member of the ECP. Consequently, Khosa’s name was dropped at an early stage of consultations. This angered Qureshi and he left for the United States instead of attending the final meeting of the parliamentary committee on ECP members. Qureshi had expressed his reservations about the people who were given party tickets for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir general elections of July 21. He was of the view that PTI Secretary General Jahangir Tareen and PTI AJK President Sultan Mehmood awarded tickets to their favourites and made huge money in the process, said the party sources.

The sources said that Qureshi was not happy with the appointment of Ishaq Khakwani as president of the PTI for southern Punjab. He wanted his nominee to take this post, but Khan turned down his proposal. Now there was a strong view in the party that Qureshi might say goodbye to the party soon.

The sources said that Qureshi had good terms with the leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). They said that Shah and Senator Aitzaz Ahsan wanted to take Qureshi back into the PPP. On the other hand, the sources said, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was also in touch with Qureshi.

After a verbal fight with Qureshi at the residence of Tareen in the presence of Khan, Sarwar left the country and now he is in London, the sources said. Before leaving the country, the sources said, he had to wait for three days to meet Khan and a common friend finally arranged a meeting. Sarwar was told by some of his friends that Khan loved to travel by the private jet owned by Tareen. According to the sources, Sarwar has now bought his own jet and he is set to return home on July 30 or 31. He is planning to settle in Islamabad on a permanent basis so that he can spend time in the company of Khan. He has started house hunting in the capital, the sources said.