ECP to nominate caretaker CM for KP

PESHAWAR: The parliamentary committee, constituted by Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Assad Qaisar to name the KP caretaker chief minister, referred the matter to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) after it failed to nominate a consensus candidate in its maiden meeting on Saturday.

The committee met at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House, Islamabad and after a round of talks decided to refer the matter to the ECP, as it could not reach consensus on any of the four nominees from the two sides.

The treasury benches in the provincial assembly were represented by Shah Farman Khan and Mehmud Khan of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, while the opposition was represented by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI)’s Noor Saleem Khan and Mehmud Betani.

The six-member committee notified by the speaker on Friday also included Atif Khan of PTI and Mufti Fazal Ghafoor of JUI but they could turn up for the meeting, sources privy to the meeting told The News.

Exercising his constitutional powers conferred on him by Article 224 (a) (2), Assad Qaisar constituted the committee on Friday to decide the matter after the outgoing KP chief minister Pervez Khattak and Opposition Leader in the provincial legislature Lutfur Rehman failed to nominate the caretaker chief minister.

Khattak had recommended former chief secretary Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi and Himayatullah Khan as his nominees for the position of caretaker chief minister of the province, while the opposition forward the names of Manzoor Afridi and Justice (retd) Dost Muhammad Khan to the committee.

The committee had to finalise the name of caretaker chief minister, under Article 224A (3), within three days of the matter referred to it.

Though the committee had one day (Sunday) to decide the matter, it referred the matter to the ECP.