Understanding Rural Politics by Saqib Idrees Taj
After the success of Lahore historic Jalsa ALLAH has given us great responsibility to save Pakistan; people have high hopes, many emotional scenes were witnessed, civil society showed up in great numbers, enthusiasm was on the peak. This event has turned the political tables and the “tsunami” that Chairman kept referring to is now visible to all. The tsunami is building up no doubt but it has yet to hit the political shore and it requires proper forethought specially at the time of awarding tickets. We, in PTI, have to keep ourselves down-to-earth, we should welcome new entrants with open arms, as our party has promised us that they will award tickets on merit and if anyone has done work on ground then he has no need to worry.
A lot of debate being going on that why we are taking peoples from other parties, I would like to shed some light on this issue, in Pakistan we have 72% rural and 28% urban constituencies for urban we need not to worry much as people can be elected on party vote but we have to understand the politics in rural, I have been asking for years to bring electables into the party because being a rural political worker I know the psyche of the rural, people are simple, thana katchery culture dominates and major factor is cast “biradari” people vote for the candidate who keeps contact with the people, who belongs to their own clan, who keeps himself available for their routine problems mainly thana katchery and who visits them in the hour of grief or happiness, so I knew from the first day when I joined PTI that we can only win if we will go for good electables mainly for the rural. So we should warmly welcome all who are coming to our party for elections we have to plot a mix “workers and politicians” but have to ensure that workers dominates to avoid a party hijack, also we have to worry less about that because we have a strong parliamentary board that will be responsible for awarding tickets on merit and further more Chairman has directed CEC to form a scrutiny committee to address complaints of corruption against party members and another committee will be formed to verify assets obtained through corruption. If our committees work in letter and spirit then our party can produce good character winning candidates.
Our party has the best think tank and CEC, members have right of speech, speak whatever you want, criticism is warmly welcomed. I met Mian Muhammad Azhar last Tuesday after the CEC meeting, he told me that he had never experienced such a CEC meeting in his life and he was impressed by the freedom of speech, he told me that in PMLN CEC meetings only flattering and gratifying remarks are articulated in the honor of the leadership and the leadership love to impose their decisions on the party.
After Lahore Jalsa PMLN seems fidgety even a perception was being given by PPP that PTI is only going to dent Muslim League N vote, PPP leadership seemed happy but when Chairman announced Jalsa in Karachi on 25th of Dec the same restlessness has travelled into PPP and MQM orbit. Now the need of hour is to organize our party as elections seems to be knocking our doors pretty soon, we should avoid disputes and should work together taking new and old workers along. PTI teams in Karachi and Sindh have got a challenge for making the 25Th DEC event successful, we being PTians are all with them and wish them best of luck
I would like to draw our Parliamentary Board’s attention that while awarding tickets their priority should be National Assembly Candidate and they ensure placing proper MPA’s under the MNA considering all factors, because our party PCO system has diverted our focus to Provincial Assemblies, and if we overlook this issue then we will lose many NA seats.
Saqib Idrees Taj (Shakargarh, Narowal) is member PEC, VP Youth Wing
