Differences in PTI Mansehra deepen

MANSEHRA: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) internal differences, which began earlier this year after corruption allegations leveled by Azam Khan Swati against lawmakers from here, deepened on Wednesday when Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati publicly dismissed them as baseless for the first time since the controversy surfaced in the political arena.

“Azam Khan’s allegations are baseless. I will never resign from the speaker’s office at his demand. If Imran Khan asks me to step down, I will do so without even thinking for a second,” he told media personnel here.

PTI’s central vice president, Azam Khan Swati, who had accused lawmakers from Mansehra district of corruption early this year, reiterated his stance during the Eid holidays.

He directly demanded that Babar Saleem Swati resign from his position as speaker of the KP Assembly after meeting Imran Khan in Adiala Prison in Rawalpindi on Tuesday.

“This is a case of Mansehra’s mega corruption. When I discussed this issue with Imran Khan in jail, he asked if the committee had reviewed the matter and made a decision. If so, the speaker should accept it and resign,” Azam Khan Swati claimed.

Azam Swati, who himself faces allegations of being released from jail through a deal in February this year, also criticised PTI’s KP chapter president, Member National Assembly Junaid Akbar.

“Instead of addressing my corruption allegations against lawmakers, Junaid Akbar appointed one of the accused MPAs, Akramullah Ghazi, as the president of PTI’s Mansehra chapter, while the former president in the district, Sardar Khan, was given the portfolio of general secretary for Hazara division,” he elaborated.

Azam Swati alleged that Imran Khan had directed Junaid Akbar to reverse all those appointments.

Speaker Babar Saleem Swati dismissed Azam Khan Swati’s charges at the press conference as fabricated and one-sided and said that he would not step down without first meeting Imran Khan.

“Azam Swati is a habitual liar, and his words hold no truth. This is nothing but a personal vendetta against me and other lawmakers. I will not even consider resigning unless my leader, Imran Khan, orders me to do so,” he said.

Babar Saleem Swati said that he would personally take up the “baseless” corruption charges hurled by Azam Swati against him and other lawmakers from Mansehra with PTI’s founding chairman and present his case to him.

“Azam Khan Swati is a hypocrite. We will not bow to his baseless propaganda and trumped-up corruption charges. The integrity of PTI and its founding chairman, Imran Khan, is of utmost importance to me and my family,” he added.

Meanwhile, PTI central leader Salman Akram Raja, who oversees internal party matters, told reporters that there was a proper hierarchy in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and that he would discuss the issue with Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and the party’s provincial president Junaid Akbar.

“I hope they (Gandapur and Akbar) would act following the committee’s recommendations about the alleged corruption in Mansehra,” he said.

He said that the party’s senior leader, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, was leading a party’s accountability committee at the Centre to check allegations.

Sources privy to the development within PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa confirmed that the committee constituted by the chief minister and the PTI provincial president, after Speaker Babar Saleem Swati voluntarily presented himself for accountability, was yet to release its findings to Imran Khan.