PM Imran Khan appoints Asad Umar as PTI secretary-general in new party setup

ISLAMABAD:  Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar has been appointed as the new PTI secretary-general by Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is also the chairman of the ruling party, a day after all PTI bodies were dissolved following the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa local bodies elections.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry disclosed the details on Sunday in a series of tweets.

Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, Maritime Minister Ali Haider Zaidi, Deputy Speaker NA Qasim Suri, Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood, and Industries Minister Khusro Bakhtiar have been appointed as the party's new provincial heads in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab, and Southern Punjab, respectively.

The information minister also announced the appointment of Aamir Mehmood Kiani as the party's additional secretary-general.

'It's an honour'

Commenting on his appointment, Asad Umar said that holding an important position in Pakistan's largest political party is a matter of honour and also a great responsibility.

"Inshallah, under the leadership of Imran Khan, the PTI will get stronger as per the expectations of party workers and voters. The workers of this party are its capital, which no other party has.”

Party setup dissolved

Fawad Chaudhry had stated a day earlier that the prime minister had disbanded the party structure following meetings with senior party leaders.

Fawad had informed the media following a meeting of the PTI's top leadership that all office-bearers of the PTI's organisational structure had been removed from their positions, as the forum examined the KP LG elections and overall condition of the country.

The minister had stated that the PM expressed discontent with the PTI's performance in the first phase of the LG elections in KP and with the ticket allocation.

Fawad had said that a 21-member constitutional committee comprised of PTI national leadership members had been constituted to work on the party's new constitution.

It consists of Pervez Khattak, Mahmood Khan, Murad Saeed, Asad Qaiser, Ali Amin Gandapur from KP, Fawad, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Hammad Azhar, Khusro Bakhtiar, Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar, Saifullah Niazee, Amir Kayani and Usman Buzdar from Punjab.

Likewise, he had continued that Mir Jan Muhammad Jamali and Qasim Suri would represent Balochistan, while Imran Ismail and Ali Zaidi from Sindh and Asad Umar from the federal capital were made part of the committee.

The minister had noted that after the approval of the committee comprising senior members, new organisations of the PTI would be constituted.

He had emphasised that PTI was the largest political party in Pakistan, which had the status of a national federal party, whereas Imran Khan is the leader of the federation and his vote bank was everywhere from Gwadar to Khyber and from Karachi to Lahore.