PESHAWAR: Sensing serious blow to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and likely split in the party, chairman PTI Imran Khan and Jahangir Khan Tareen personally intervened and finally resolved differences between chief minister Pervez Khattak and two influential cabinet members, Mohammad Atif Khan and Shahram Khan Tarakai on Wednesday.
“Yes it’s true Imran Khan felt their differences a serious threat to the party and PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and called all of them t his residence in Banigala where he urged them to resolve their disputes with immediate effect,” said a senior PTI leader on condition of anonymity.
According to PTI sources, after developing serious differences with Pervez Khattak over a number of issues related to distribution of public funds, employments in government departments and supporting each other’s political rivals, the two cabinet members, minister of education Atif Khan and health minister Shahram Khan had stopped attending their offices for more than three weeks.
Shahram Khan confirmed their patch up with Pervez Khattak.
He however denied reports of boycotting their offices and official work.
“There were some issues between us but we never stopped our official work. We continued our routine work and used to send files to the chief minister,” Shahram Khan told The News.
After their patch up in Banigala in Islamabad on Wednesday night, Shahram Khan and Atif Khan on Thursday came to the chief minister secretariat and called on Pervez Khattak.
Their differences had created unrest among the party workers in the province.
There were also rumours that Shahram Khan and Atif Khan were likely to quit the party if their grievances were not addressed.
A section of the media even reported that the Awami National Party (ANP) leadership had approached Shahram Khan and invited him to the party.
Shahram Khan however denied these reports.
“I read some reports in the media but there was no truth in those reports. The ANP leadership had neither contacted me nor I made any plan to join the party. There is a lot of difference in my approach and ANP politics. My politics is in fact against the ANP,” he said.
According to PTI sources, the party leadership had given the task of resolving differences between the chief minister and the two ministers to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly speaker Assad Qaisar but he could not find a possible solution to their disputes, despite his efforts.
Besides Assad Qaisar, PTI MNA Ali Mohammad Khan, Information Minister Shah Farman and some other party leaders also played their role to resolve issues between their top leadership.
According to PTI sources, differences between Pervez Khattak and Shahram Khan surfaced during the Senate election when Pervez Khattak used Shahram Tarakai’s opponent MPA Babar Saleem as proposer for nomination of his close relative to contest for a Senate seat.
The Tarakai family suspected that the chief minister had allegedly backed Babar Saleem in his clash with Shahram Tarakai and his uncle Mohammad Ali Tarakai when they nearly came to blows.
Party sources said that the real tussle later started between Pervez Khattak and Atif Khan after some of the party leaders said Atif Khan would be the next chief minister of PTI won election in 2018.
According to PTI sources, some PTI MPAs and MNAs started campaign against Atif Khan in his native town Mardan.
Some other PTI people told Atif Khan that the party elected representatives and workers were in fact working against him on the behest of chief minister.
Also, PTI MPAs and other workers in Mardan arranged events in support of Pervez Khattak and installed banners inscribed with slogans “Pervez Khan long-life chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”.
Those anti-Atif Khan MPAs had arranged a public gathering for Pervez Khattak on August 12 in Katlang subdivision, where Atif Khan and his group was not invited.
However, after the patch up, PTI sources the public meeting in Katlang has been cancelled as chief minister would not like to annoy Atif Khan by attending that meeting.
Atif Khan belongs to Mardan and is a central office-bearer of PTI, and Minister for Health Shahram Khan Tarakai hailing from Swabi district. The AJIP had one MNA and five MPAs when it was merged into PTI after Imran Khan visited the Tarakai House in Swabi in 2015.
Shahram Tarakai’s father Liaqat Khan Tarakai was subsequently elected as Senator on the PTI ticket.
“Pervez Khattak would give tough time to Imran Khan and other party leaders if he felt they were taking action against him,” said a PTI member. It may be added that Shahram Tarakai and Atif Khan are close relatives.
