ANP leaders blast PTI for keeping mum

Charges against Asad Qaiser

NOWSHERA: Awami National Party (ANP) leaders on Sunday blasted the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leadership for keeping silence over the corruption allegations against Khyber Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser.

“The PTI leaders level allegations against opponents but are silent over the National Accountability Bureau’s inquiry against Asad Qaiser,” ANP Secretary General Mian Iftikhar Hussain told a workers’ convention in Akora Khattak.

The ANP provincial president and former chief minister, Amir Haider Hoti, also spoke on the occasion. The ANP leaders also accused the chief minister of compromising on provinces’ interests. The chief minister did not defend the province’s case about the route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

“There was no issue of eastern or western route in the CPEC. But the project was made controversial by depriving Pakhtuns of their rights. The chief minister compromised the rights of the Pakhtuns to appease his leader,” added Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

The ANP’s senior leader said that the western route of the CPEC was a source of economic revolution for the Pakhtuns and people of other smaller provinces. He said the ANP would continue struggle for the rights of the province.

Mian Iftikhar said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had placed before the participants of the All Parties Conference the total plan of the CPEC. “The prime minister should implement that plan,” he demanded.