PML-N KP members brawl as Saranjam Khan walks out

Unity among the ranks of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chapter leadership of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was put to test when several leaders of the party brawled among themselves here on Wednesday.
Sources told Pakistan Today that after his arrival in Peshawar on Tuesday, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif was contacting central leader Saranjam Khan to bring him around after his longstanding complaint that party veterans were increasingly discarded in matters of the party in favour of new faces. After his visit to Khan’s residence, Sharif’s statement that the party was “united and strong in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa” fell flat on its face on Wednesday when during the provincial council meeting of the party’s KP chapter, Khan staged an indignant walkout.
Indiscipline followed as stalwarts and activists of the party resorted to angry sloganeering and gathering right in the front of the dais where Sharif and party leaders Sardar Mehtab, Ahsan Iqbal, Sartaj Aziz, Mushahidullah, Captain (r) Safdar and Iqbal Zafar Jhagra were sitting, over the issue of nomination of the KP chapter general secretary of the party. The meeting, held at Nishtar Hall in Peshawar, quickly descended into chaos after the unopposed election of former KP chief minister and PML-N stalwart Pir Sabir Shah as the new provincial chapter president. Objections came from Mehr Sultana, a candidate for general secretary against her opponent Rahmat Salam Khattak, on Khattak’s membership of the provincial organising committee of the party, which she said rendered him ineligible to contest the general secretary elections. This caused the KP chapter leaders and workers to argue, which eventually led to a brawl. However, after Sultana voluntarily withdrew her candidacy and MPA Shazia Aurangzeb also followed suit, Khattak was elected the provincial general secretary unopposed. Khattak’s election caused Saranjam Khan to walk out of the provincial council meeting, however, no one from the leadership of the PML-N present on the occasion took any pains to stop him.
Later, Saranjam Khan resigned from the membership of the party’s Executive Council, Dunya News reported. He said now a party workers’ meeting would be held on January 4 in which a new strategy would be planned for the future. However, Saranjam has declared openly that he has no intentions to join the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) as he is committed to the PML-N. His resignation, nonetheless, comes as a new blow to the PML-N, which is already reeling from veteran Makdhoom Javed Hashmi’s departure to the Imran Khan-led PTI.