Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman PTI Imran Khan has constituted a powerful four-member committee tasked with awarding tickets to potential candidates for the upcoming general elections in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK), Pakistan Today has learnt reliably.
Sources said that the four-member committee included Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Siafullah Niazi, Ghulam Sarwar and Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry.
The Azad Kashmir chapter of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is an emerging political force especially with the joining of the party by former AJK prime minister Barrister Sultan Mehmood.
In the 48-member incumbent AJK Assembly, PTI only has one seat which is held by Barrister Sultan Mehmood. AJKPP has 29 seats, PML-N has 11, the Muslim Conference has five seats, MQM has two, Jamiat-e-Ulema Pakistan one, while the rest are held by independents.
PTI hopes to present a tough challenge to the rival political parties, but PML-N is also not taking the elections lightly as several of its sitting ministers have visited the area and held public gatherings in recent days.
The PTI chairman and other senior party leaders have yet to hold any public gatherings, but the party’s central leaders have hinted that Imran Khan would address public gatherings in AJK in the coming days.
The PTI chairman during his press conference along with PTI Chief Election Commissioner Tasneem Noorani on January 15 announced the dissolution of all PTI bodies except in AJK and Balochistan due to upcoming intra-party polls slated to be held by April 25.
Sources said that keeping in view the last experience of holding intra-party polls just before the May 11 general elections, the party decided not to repeat the same mistake and did not dissolve the party’s AJK bodies as the elections are around the corner. Sources said that the intra-party polls will be held in AJK after the general elections.