Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) after gaining much support in Khyber Pukhtunkhawa now faces internal rifts as many of its stalwarts are fighting over reserve seats.
A central leader of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and ex-president women wing Fauzia Kasuri may join Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and an announcement in this regard likely to be made public in a day or two, inside sources said.
Fauzia has also been offered key position in PML-N and the decision in this regard would be taken after consulting senior members of the party who were too worried about disproportionate distribution of the seats in the recently concluded general elections.
“It was the testing time for the party chief who had to play its role in awarding tickets purely on merits and for that reason, the chairman had conducted intra-party elections just a month before general election so that suitable candidates should have come up,” disgruntled party members requesting anonymity said.
As PTI did not manage to take many seats in the Punjab province, traditionally a stronghold of Nawaz, it was difficult to accommodate so many faces and the differences in the party’s women wing had surfaced.
In the limited situation, PTI had to name only two female MNAs from Punjab and Shireen Mazari and Munazza Hassan was chosen for the seats, leaving Kasuri and other women out of the parliament.
Kasuri was the president women wing of the party. She had even sacrificed her US citizenship, as dual nationality was the disqualification to enter into parliament.
She also posted on social networking website Twitter that she was being ignored by the party leadership who she said did not even respond to her reservations against what she claimed was a non-transparent distribution of party tickets to women on reserved seats.
Her contention was that Dr Shirin Mazari who earlier quit the party and later returned was awarded party ticket and that too at number one on priority list of women reserved seats.
She had submitted written complaints and made desperate calls to the chairman but did not get response, which was the cause of irritation and she finally posted on social sites. “Party is sending signals for me to leave” Kasuri posted on Twitter.