ISLAMABAD    -   The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf again mulls bringing major structural changes within its organisation and consultations are under way to re-introduce the old regional system in a move to ‘run the party affairs smoothly.’

If the PTI central executive committee gave a final nod to bring amendments in the party’s constitution for making changes within its hierarchy, it would be a major shift in the party’s organisation once again in less than 5 months.

For the purpose, the ruling party will dissolve all its provincial bodies to re-introduce the regional system and a constitution review committee recently formed by the party is finalising its recommendations on the proposal, an office bearer of the PTI’s Central Secretariat said.

On May 1, the PTI CEC under the party’s chairman Imran Khan had approved amendments in the party’s constitution to introduce a central organisation system in the provinces and to abolish the regions in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

After the approval, all bodies of the party at federal and provincial levels were dissolved except the central body and new appointments in the lights of the amend hierarchy were announced.

The purpose of the abolishing regions was that there should be a uniform organisational system within the party as Sindh and Balochistan had central system and Punjab and KP had regional system, the office bearer said, adding that idea was that single body at the provincial level should run the party affairs for a smooth working and to follow better chain of command.

The party office bearer said that as the party in the middle of July announced new appointments under the new system, it is facing governance problems because Punjab, especially is such a big province that it could not be run by a single central body. So, there is a need to again introduce the previous system but this has to be seen that whether it is introduced in all provinces or only in Punjab and KP like the past, he added.

Secretary Information PTI Ahmed Jawad in a statement said that the party had developed a principled consensus that regions should be created in order to devolve the power at grass root level and for this purpose the consultations with the central executive committee were at final stage. However, he said that no decision had been made so far to dissolve anybody at any level. “The existing organizational structure is intact and functional up till now.”

In the central system, the PTI has a single body including president, secretary general, vice presidents and other positions for each province. The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) has a separate body with status of a province.

In the regional system, Punjab had 4 regions including north, south, central and west, while KP had 3 regions including Peshawar, Hazara and Southern.

The ICT had also been given the status of region. Previously, the areas of districts Rawalpindi, Attock, Mianwali and Bhakkar etc were under north region of PTI, and districts Multan, DG Khan, Lodhran, Vehari, and Bahawalpur etc were under south region.

Similarly, the central region included districts Lahore, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, and Okara etc and west region included Faisalabad and its adjoining districts.