ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan, in his capacity as the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) chairman, reconstituted the party’s core committee and central executive committee (CEC), mostly retaining the old faces.

       According to an official announcement by the PTI’s central media department, the new core committee comprises 33 members, whereas the newly formed CEC has 60 members. Mr Khan will remain the head of both committees.

       Prominent members of the core committee include Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Aamir Kiani, Fawad Chaudhry, Pervez Khattak, Shafqat Mehmood, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Imran Ismail, Asad Qaiser, Qasim Suri, Ali Amin Gandapur, Ali Zaidi, Hammad Azhar, Mahmood Khan, Shireen Mazari, Usman Buzdar, Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar, Murad Saeed, Aamir Dogar, Azam Swati, Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Babar Awan and Haleem Adil Sheikh.

       In December, Prime Minister Imran Khan dissolved the party’s organisational structure across the country a few days after a shocking defeat of the PTI in the first phase of local government elections in its stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He then constituted a 21-member committee to form a new structure of party organisations.

       Announcing the premier’s decision to dissolve all party chapters, federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry told a news conference at the time that Mr Khan had dissolved all PTI organisations from centre to tehsil level across the country after consulting the party’s senior leadership and that all the office-bearers of the organisational set-up had been removed from their posts.

       Mr Khan blamed the selection of wrong candidates for the defeat in the first phase of KP’s local government elections. Later, the special committee constituted by Mr Khan to review the PTI’s organisational structure decided to revoke party’s constitution and revive the previous one adopted in 2015 with a few changes aimed at strengthening the party at grassroots level.

       The committee recommended that the party should have five tiers instead of seven and make provincial constituencies the new tier in place of tehsils.

       Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2022