PESHAWAR: Opposition parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly termed the proposed dissolution of provincial assembly as a hollow threat on the part of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and said Chief Minister Mahmood Khan could not dare advise the dissolution.
Talking to The News before the assembly session on Monday, parliamentary party leaders of Jamiat Ulema Islam-F, Awami National Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz asked the federal government to hold general elections as per the schedule and not to come under the pressure of Imran Khan who had claimed to dissolve the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies if the federal government did not announce the date for the upcoming general election by the end of December.
JUIF parliamentary party leader Maulana Lutf-ur-Rehman said the PTI chief was exerting pressure on the federal government, adding the PTI chief take a UJ-turn on that. “The Punjab chief minister has now expressed his reservations over resignation from provincial assembly or dissolution of the Punjab Assembly,” he said and added that KP chief minister Mahmood Khan and other provincial ministers would not want a premature end to their five-year tenure in the province.
The JUIF leader said former prime minister Imran Khan and other PTI leaders would not like to lose government in the Punjab and KP as they were using provincial government machinery, resources and platform against the federal government.
Deputy parliamentary party leader of ANP and former deputy speaker Khushdil Khan said that as Imran Khan was famous for his U-turns, he would go back on his new claim about the dissolution of the provincial assemblies.
“We are not taking his (PTI chief) claims seriously and even have not devised any plan to stop the move of dissolution or resignation from the assembly,” he said and added that the KP government would not take the risk of leaving the ongoing developmental works incomplete in the province.
He believed that the PTI-led government in the KP would not dare to quit the government before its last annual budget. PMLN MPA and former federal minister Sardar Yousuf criticized KP Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani for his statement about his resignation from the assembly and reminded him that the speaker belonged to no political party but was a custodian of the House.
He said that the PTI had remained in power for the last 10 years in the province but neither implemente, and transparency or launched any mega project in the province. The ruling PTI enjoys an absolute majority in KP Assembly with 97 members in the 145-member House while the combined opposition in the provincial assembly has insufficient strength to move a no-trust motion against the chief minister to stop him from dissolving the provincial assembly.
