‘Reversing 18th Amendment to be resisted tooth and nail’

CHARSADDA: Awami National Party (ANP) chief Asfandyar Wali on Friday warned against reversing the 18th Constitutional Amendment and vowed to resist any such move tooth and nail. "We will respond to those wanting to take back powers devolved to the provinces under the 18th Constitutional Amendment in the same tone and manner," he said while speaking at the party's workers convention in Mera Utmanzai here.

Criticising Imran Khan for targeting his political opponents on various pretexts, the ANP head challenged the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief to expose his party's lawmakers who were involved in horse-trading in the recent Senate election.

"He (Imran) used to dub Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as thieves. He claimed he will spare no effort to fight corruption but this was hollow talk. He supported the PPP in the Senate election and negated his previous stance," argued Asfandyar Wali.

He said the PTI chief kept a mum over the role of the PTI lawmakers who sold their votes in the election to the Upper House of Parliament. "Imran Khan ignored the corruption of his party's parliamentarians and ministers," the ANP leader maintained. He alleged that Imran Khan has been smoking hashish. "One should not expect from Imran Khan to say anything sane after smoking a dose of hashish," he remarked.

Asfandyar Wali said the politicians should agree to come on television and be put under oath whether or not they had committed any corruption. He said the PTI lawmakers and ministers were levelling serious corruption allegations against Chief Minister Pervez Khattak. "Millions were embezzled in the Billion Tree Tsunami project while the Rs172 billion Bab-e-Peshawar Flyover has developed cracks but the anti-corruption bodies have yet to probe the anomalies in the two projects," he pointed out.

The ANP chief said that more corruption stories would be unearthed after the PTI-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government completed its term. He also came down hard on the Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) chief Aftab Sherpao for getting tricked thrice by the PTI chief Imran Khan.

"Imran Khan expelled the QWP twice from the provincial government but he (Aftab Sherpao) went into alliance in the Senate election with the PTI again and was deceived for the third time," he said.

He said the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) have revived the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in a bid to grab power. He asked the government to merge Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before the next general election and give representation to the tribal areas in the provincial assembly.