said funds were being spent in Nowshera, Swabi and Dir. Nowshera is the home district of Pervaiz Khattak, Swabi of Speaker Asad Qaiser and Dir of former senior minister and incumbent Jamaat-e-Islami Chief Sirajul Haq. “Peshawar has been in ruins,” he complained, vowing that he would continue his struggle to claim the due rights of the provincial capital.
The dissident lawmaker said the government was pursuing its own agenda that was not in consonance with Imran Khan’s programme. He said the chief minister and his cabinet had kept Imran Khan in the dark and were not implementing his manifesto.
He slammed the party, saying that people voted it to power for change but it had disappointed the masses. He also described the PTI as a status quo party and alleged that it was not accepting poor people like him. “It’s wrong that this party is for the poor. In fact, it’s a status quo party where a poor man like me is shunned and millionaires are hailed,” he remarked.
It may be mentioned that at least 14 lawmakers, including Javed Naseem, have formed a ‘pressure group’ in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly to keep a check on the government.
Three lawmakers of the group were inducted into the cabinet on Friday in an apparent effort to appease the disgruntled MPAs. But it failed to give any respite to the Pervaiz Khattak government as the dissidence not only deepened but also went public.
Within an hour or so after Javed Naseem’s outburst against the party leadership and the chief minister, the PTI provincial President Mohammad Azam Swati issued a show-cause notice to him to explain why he made public his grievances against members of the PTI government. He was directed to submit his reply within seven days otherwise ‘serious action’ would be taken against him. He was warned that more statements in the media would constitute further violation of discipline.
“You have been found involved in a violation of party discipline,” the first paragraph of the show-cause notice said. “Any charges against members of the KP government must be brought to the knowledge of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman,” it added.
Though the show-cause notice did not say it, a party press release described such statements against the party as inappropriate at a time when Imran Khan and the party’s central and provincial leadership were busy organising the Islamabad sit-in. It said meeting Imran Khan or the chief minister was not difficult and reservations could have been conveyed to them. “The party leadership should have been informed of these reservations,” the press release said.
However, Javed Naseem in a recent interview with The News complained that Imran Khan had disregarded files containing ‘evidence’ of corruption against six ministers and discouraged him from taking up the issue. “Everyone is not honest like you, there will be thieves with me in the party,” Javed Naseem quoted Imran Khan as telling him.