PTI leadership ‘turns on itself’ after protest debacle

The recent PTI protest march has caused significant rifts within the party's leadership, with calls for changes at the top to steer the organization out of its current crisis. The tension escalated publicly on Wednesday as Secretary General Salman Akram Raja and former KP chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur traded accusations of betraying the party's cause.

The conflict erupted on X (formerly Twitter), where Raja rebuked the move by KP lawmakers to nominate Gandapur as interim KP president, demanding an apology for what he called "name-calling". The controversy intensified when a group of KP Assembly lawmakers unanimously proposed to appoint Gandapur as the acting provincial president, in the absence of missing MNA Junaid Akbar.

This decision, made during a meeting via Zoom and WhatsApp attended by around 55 provincial lawmakers, drew criticism from Raja over the "narrative" suggesting that a new provincial president was being appointed without Imran Khan's permission. Raja accused the dissidents of cutting off communication with party officials, claiming they were paving the way for state coercion, emergency, and governor's rule in the province.

Gandapur fired back, accusing Raja of hiding during the protest movement and demanding an apology for calling him and other elected representatives "snakes and serpents". The dispute highlights the ongoing internal struggles within the party, particularly following the failure of the protest march and the subsequent imposition of governor's rule in KP, which has further complicated the situation for jailed leader Imran Khan.