As PTI's intra-party election campaign is heating up, party's former Punjab organiser Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar, despite being the centre of a controversy over the past few days, on Sunday announced his candidature for the post of the party's Punjab president.
He said: "I will contest the intra-party elections for the post of PTI's Punjab president as there is no legal bar that halts me from contesting the election for a party post. Party Chairman Imran Khan has allowed me to contest the intra-party election and I am not leaving the country," he added.
He said that Imran Khan's bold decision of holding intra-party elections has been widely hailed by the party's workers and supports.
Meanwhile, the other PTI leaders, who are reportedly interested in the top Punjab post, include Ejaz Chaudhry, Waleed Iqbal, Aleem Khan, Omar Sarfaraz Cheema and Hamid Khan.
The PTI intra-party election commission has announced that there will be a membership campaign for eight to 10 weeks (February-March) and the intra-party elections will be held in three months.
Addressing the party workers, Chaudhry Sarwar alleged that intensity of corruption in the PML-N government had doubled as compared to the previous regime of Asif Ali Zardari.
"Today, every Pakistani is in debt of 0.1 million as compared to 82,000 that existed in the PPP's tenure," he said, adding that the incumbent government has been spending a huge budget on a `non-productive' Orange Metro Train project, instead of investing in education and health sector.
Accusing the government of indulging in corruption, he said that masses are not its priority, or else Punjab would have been the most prosperous and affluent province in the country.
Sarwar said that the greatest challenge for the PTI is to promote and select people on merit as only by doing so we could bring a positive change in the country.