PESHAWAR, Aug 2: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) has been dissolved and an interim setup announced for holding party elections at the union council level within three months.

“In the rapidly changing political situation in the country, the party’s central executive committee has decided to set up provincial organising committee and working committees for three months to hold party election at the grassroots to get good candidates for the next general elections,” PTI Chairman Imran Khan told a press conference on Tuesday after the party meeting.

An organising committee has been set up under justice (retired) Burhanudin for the interim period to look after the party affairs.

The committee members include Rustam Shah Mohmand, Atif Khan, Akbar S. Babar, Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, Umar Farooq Hoti, Mehrab Khan, Prof Mehr Taj Roghani, Zafarullah Khattak, Hamidul Haq, Zahid Hussain Mohmand and Shah Farman.

“The popularity graph of the PTI has been going up and several Gallup polls have shown that the party’s vote bank, particularly in Punjab, has been increasing,” Mr Khan said.

Flanked by other party leaders, including Asad Qaisar and Dr Abdul Mateen, the PTI chairman condemned the killing of two party workers in Karachi and urged the government to stop politicising police and other law-enforcement organisations to end the violence in Karachi. The corruption of the present rulers has made it easy for the PTI to spring surprises in the next general elections, he said.

“The country lacks genuine opposition. Both the Zardari-led PPP and Nawaz-led PML have looted the country and stashed the money in foreign banks,” he alleged and claimed that Nawaz Sharif didn’t oppose the NRO because of his own corruption.

He said that the PTI was an emerging political force in the country and the party would field honest candidates with clean record in the next election.

“We can enter into electoral alliances with nationalist parties in Balochistan and elsewhere, but there’s no question of alliance with corrupt politicians and parties,” he said and added that his was the only political party that had survived in opposition for 15 long years.

Mr Khan said that the present government would have long been removed from power had the PML-N played the role of genuine opposition. H said that appointment of police personnel by political parties had led to the crisis in Karachi.

On this occasion, Dr Abdul Mateen and Shah Farman were made advisors to the party chairman on strategic and political matters, respectively.