Staff Reporter Lahore
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Saturday dismissed any notion of a split “Tareen” faction within the PTI forming.
“No new group is forming; small differences do occur sometimes,” he said, as he addressed a press conference in Lahore, after meeting party members that have professed loyalty to Jahangir Khan Tareen over what they term as “injustices” by the government.
Fawad Chaudhry said that the PTI and members of estranged PTI leader Jahangir Khan Tareen’s group had decided to move forward as a “family” and united political party, adding that any personal or collective problems would be resolved through dialogue.
Addressing a press conference in Lahore along with members of the JKT group, the minister said he and PTI leader Aamir Mehmood Kiani had been tasked by Prime Minister Imran Khan to visit the group and hear their point of view in detail.
“We all have decided to move forward as a family and a united party as is tradition. There is no issue of grouping in this or conflict between one another,“We have decided that we will sit and have talks to solve any personal or collective problems.
We are all united under [Prime Minister] Imran Khan’s leadership,” Chaudhry said after the meeting with the group, adding that the delegation had also been tasked to solve the issues of the group in an “organisational manner”.
Chaudhry said all of them were one “family” and often there were coordination issues in a family. He acknowledged that there was a need to improve the party’s political and administrative coordination.
According to the information minister, the members of the JKT group had “expressed confidence in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s leadership and they are proud of their relation with the PTI and these are the basic things which we are all united on”.
He said issues sometimes arose on small matters or problems but on “big issues, all these people are clear that Imran Khan is their leader and PTI is their [political] party and there are no two opinions about it.”
The meeting came after the JKT group held a meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar on Friday.
“We are happy with the way the investigation is proceeding against Tareen and we are satisfied today with the prime minister’s promise to us that there would be no injustice with Tareen,” Punjab Agriculture Minister Malik Nauman Ahmad Langrial had said after the meeting.
He said that the group had received a very “positive response” from Chief Minister Buzdar, who had heard their concerns with “patience” and issued instructions to resolve the same.
Separately, Prime Minister Imran had also met with some Punjab ministers from the Tareen camp on the same day.
A source in the Prime Minister’s Office told media that the premier had assured the legislators that all “genuine” demands of the group would be met.
