PTI lacks discipline, not factions, says Shaukat Yousafzai

PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's information secretary for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Shaukat Yousafzai, said on Saturday that the party suffers from a lack of discipline rather than factional grouping, and asked Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan to bring its leaders together.

In a statement issued in Peshawar, Yousafzai said he was disappointed by recent remarks party leaders had aimed at one another in public. The Minute Mirror and UrduPoint both carried his comments.

He said differences of opinion in a large political party should not be described as divisions. With party founder Imran Khan in jail, disagreement among members was natural, he said, but leaders should stop trading statements through the media because such remarks damage the party's unity.

Yousafzai said a disciplinary committee had become necessary to prevent further disorder in the organisation, and asked Barrister Gohar to play an active part in holding the leadership together before differences grew.

On the debate over creating new provinces, he said the matter had not been discussed inside PTI and there was no disagreement over it in the party. PTI's position, he said, is that new provinces can only be created through the constitutional process. He argued that additional provinces could help settle administrative and public problems.

The Minute Mirror reported that he also said meetings between lawyers and the PTI founder should not be treated as a controversy.

Yousafzai said PTI was not being given enough political space across the country. Instead of expanding that space, he said, the party was creating more room for internal disagreement. He said reconciliation and mutual understanding were essential for the party to get through its present difficulties.