Opposition asks Tehreek-e-Insaf govt to step down

Threat to dissolve KP Assembly

PESHAWAR:  The opposition in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday asked the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government to accept its failure and step down instead of threatening to dissolve the provincial assembly.

Speaking at a press conference, opposition leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman said the provincial government was not serious about delivering on its pledges.He said assembly was a big and important forum where public representatives discussed the problems being faced by the people, but the PTI government was not giving it any importance.

He said no good could be expected from the PTI and its Chairman Imran Khan as he was conspiring against democracy and was plotting to reach the corridors of power through the backdoor. 

“Every act of the PTI leadership, including its Islamabad sit-in, attacks on media outlets and the so-called movement against corruption are aimed at destabilising the country and derailing democracy,” Maulana Lutfur Rehman alleged.

He said the PTI government would have constituted a judicial commission to investigate the Bank of Khyber scandal if it was serious in eradicating corruption instead of asking a minister whose party was expelled from the government on charges of corruption to lead the ministerial inquiry committee on the issue.

Maulana Lutfur Rehman, who is the younger brother of JUI-F head Maulana Fazlur Rehman, said the heads of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission, Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (PEDO) and Anti-Corruption Establishment were forced to resign. “This spoke volumes about the PTI government’s sincerity in fighting corruption,” he maintained.

He said one after the other the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary were removed and they in turn charge-sheeted the government, but Imran Khan and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak still claimed that they were bringing reforms and eradicating corruption. He said the government’s failure could be judged from the increase in crime ratio, extortions, poor law and order situation and turning the province into a police state.

Speaking on the occasion, Awami National Party’s parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said the province was passing through financial, administrative and parliamentary crises and assembly proceedings were adjourned to stage the PTI’s sit-in protests and public meetings. He alleged that PTI and the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were two sides of the same coin. “The PTI is the political wing of TTP,” he stressed.

Sardar Hussain Babak said the government should admit its failure to deliver instead of threatening to dissolve the provincial assembly that had the mandate of millions of people. “A single party didn’t have the right to dissolve the assembly,” he argued.