Corruption in KP: Opposition plans dharna against CM

PESHAWAR: The opposition parties in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly have warned of staging a sit-in in front of the Chief Minister’s House if all those ministers including the CM facing National Accountability Bureau inquiries for corruption do not tender their resignations immediately.

A requisition has been submitted in the assembly for calling the assembly session. A press conference was addressed in this regard by Pakistan Muslim League-N parliamentary leader in assembly Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha, Awami National Party’s Sardar Hussain Babak, and Pakistan People’s Party’s Ziaullah Afridi, here on Tuesday.

They said that ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan had been demanding resignations of ministers in all other provinces over alleged corruption, but he was not paying any heed to the same charges against his own ministers in KP.

Thirty-three MPAs have signed the requisition for summoning the assembly session and submitted it to the assembly secretary. They have also submitted a 22-point agenda for the upcoming session. Main agenda points include: billion tree tsunami scandal, helicopter misuse scandal, Peshawar metro corruption, foreign loans acquired by the provincial government, illegal mining going on in the province etc.

The opposition leaders said Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak had always purchased and bought votes of parliamentarians for Senate elections, and this time his own stable has been purchased. Now he owns only two per cent of the assembly members and 98pc are turncoats with him.

They said they wanted to give a message to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa people that the provincial government remained busy in corruption for five years. Imran Khan kept demanding in his visits to other provinces to resign but why he didn’t demand the same in case of his chief minister and ministers, they asked and added that Imran should start from his own house.

The opposition lawmakers said they would give a deadline to the chief minister and his cabinet members to tender their resignations and stage a sit-in outside the CM House in case of the demand was not met.

They said Imran used to hold rallies in Hazara at the College Ground but organised his latest gathering at a crossing and would hold gathering in streets in future because the people had got tired of him.

They claimed that the 75 assistant commissioners were harassing traders after they had been tasked with collecting Rs3 million to Rs5.5 million through fines, which was nothing but extortion.

The lawmakers mocked the chief minister for challenging the opposition and said only 2 per cent of the supporters was his own people and the remaining 98 per cent were the turncoats. Even the chief minister didn’t know for much more time he would stay with the PTI, they said and added that the sale of the entire stable was witnessed only during his tenure because he had always traded in the Senate elections.

The opposition members said the chief minister had been claiming from day one to bring a change within 90 days, but he at the end was currently giving statements about eliminating the opposition in the upcoming elections instead of thinking about his own future. They said not one should present the sixth budget whether it was the Centre or the province because it was a right of the next government, which must not be usurped. The lawmakers said both ECP and Supreme Court should take notice and action over the PTI members giving away money and receiving calls with regard to the Senate polls.