LAHORE: PTI leader Shafqat Mehmood set a good precedent on Sunday by stepping down as party’s Lahore organiser over PTI’s poor performance in the provincial capital in Saturday’s local elections. “As district incharge it is my moral duty to accept responsibility for this (party’s) poor performance. I have today resigned as Lahore organizer,” he twitted yesterday.

Shafqat, PTI’s only MNA from Lahore, had also sent his resignation to party chairman Imran Khan. The results of the LB polls show that the city largely belongs to the PML-N. Imran’s party could only grab 12 seats of chairman in 274 union councils of Lahore Metropolitan, though it had fielded 258 candidates for chairman slots. Punjab PTI organiser Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar said the party had performed better in other districts of Punjab. The party has made its presence felt even in rural areas, he said while talking to reporters here on Sunday.

Asked whether he would follow the example set by Shafqat Mehmood, the former Punjab governor believed that the PTI would perform better in the next two phases of the LB polls, to be held in November and December. In case the performance was not up to the mark, he said he would offer himself for accountability to the leadership as well as workers.

The PTI leader said the entire government machinery was supporting the PML-N candidates in the LB polls. Fearing that the next two phases too would not be free and fair under the existing arrangement, Chaudhry Sarwar demanded deployment of the army at all polling stations.