- Asad Qasier confirms having contacted Fawad Chaudhry.
- All leaders have been asked to remain silent for the time being, he says.
- Gandapur says misunderstandings must be properly addressed.
As the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) struggles with divisions within the party, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and senior leader Asad Qasier reached out to their former colleague Fawad Chaudhry and asked the former minister to refrain from criticising the party.
KP CM Gandapur, sources said Geo news On Thursday, he contacted Fawad and stressed the need to resolve the existing misunderstanding and asked the former minister not to speak against the current leadership of the party.
While Qasier also confirmed having contacted Fawad and stressed that all leaders have been asked to remain silent for the time being, the sources added.
The move comes after jailed PTI founder Imran Khan admitted to divisions and groupings within the party and met “both factions” today in Adia jail.
Speaking to reporters in a courtroom at the Adiala premises, the former prime minister informed about any advancing bloc within the PTI and stressed that there were no major differences within the party.
However, not all is well within the ranks of the former ruling party, which is mired in internal turmoil and with leaders often publicly criticising each other.
In June, sources said Geo news that 27 Sunni lawmakers of the PTI-backed Ittehad Council (SIC) deliberated on the option of resigning from the National Assembly in protest against the party's top leadership.
Of the 27, insiders had said that 21 of their lawmakers had hinted at forming an advance bloc in the face of the top leadership's failure to secure the release of the party founder from jail, the sources added.
Meanwhile, the party's secretary-general, Omar Ayub, has resigned as party secretary-general to focus on his role as opposition leader in the National Assembly.
However, both the PTI central committee and the parliamentary party rejected Ayub's resignation with the former asking him to retract his decision to quit the coveted party post.
Moreover, during his interaction with reporters in the court, Khan chose not to respond when asked if former Fawad had sent him a message for meeting and his continued criticism of the current PTI leadership.
Fawad has been openly critical of the current PTI leadership and has in fact called it an obstacle to the release of the PTI founder and other leaders due to the lack of political strategy.
On the one hand, he has been engaged in exchanging pleasantries with the current PTI leadership, while on the other, while speaking about Geo news Speaking on Naya Pakistan, he admitted that he was “desperate” to get back into the game.
Meanwhile, the party's Information Secretary Raoof Hasan, while speaking at Geo News Capital Talk said Fawad had been expelled from the PTI after joining another party and therefore had no right to comment on the party.
Hasan also said that some “detractors” were spreading a narrative against the PTI’s top leadership on social media, adding that there is no impression in the PTI that those who left the party should return.
The majority view within the party is that those who have left the party should not return, he said.
