The good thing (or bad thing) about the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is that it keeps changing its goal posts and keep putting different people in different roles. In politics, changing position is often called U-turn.
This is what PTI founder Imran Khan has done this recently: he asked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa party head Junaid Akbar to resign as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and focus on the provincial party affairs.
Junaid has been accused of ignoring KP while managing party affairs from Islamabad. Khan was unhappy about this and decided to send him back to the province.
Though several circles had leaked the development to the media several days ago, the change of PAC head was PTI’s spokesperson Sheikh Waqqas Akram confirmed the news, saying Imran Khan gave this message through his sister Aleema Khan. Later, after her visit to Adiala Jail, she told Salman Akram Raja about the change.
The situation put Junaid Akbar in an awkward position as he was not ready to accept the new reality. At first, he said he would take two days to resign but later said that he would step down only after meeting Imran Khan. He, however, went home without meeting Khan after Aleema Khan brought Imran’s message to him to resign and focus on KP.
His second was to appoint Omar Ayub as the new PAC chairman. As the government has weaponised meeting with Imran, often confusions prevail when contradictory statements come out of Adiala cell, housing Imran Khan. PTI believes that Aleema Khan speaks only what Imran Khan says.
The thing is if PTI really wants to separate party and parliamentary roles, it should have thought of this earlier. In January, Junaid was made both PAC chief and KP president-at the same time! This kind of mixed messaging does not work in politics. *