PTI has targeted five of its own cabinet members so far

PESHAWAR: Out of 11 provincial assembly seats in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa metropolis, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had secured 10 in the May 2013 general election, but after remaining in power for just two years it has declared at least five of its winners as corrupt, inefficient, dissident and dishonest.
The last victim is former provincial minister Ziaullah Afridi, elected from PK-1 Peshawar, whose basic membership of the party was cancelled after the Ehtesab Commission Khyber Pakhtunkhwa arrested him on corruption charges.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly witnessed a heated debate over his arrest on Monday wherein opposition parties questioned his arrest being a member of the cabinet and provincial assembly while members from the treasury benches adopted meaningful silence in the hours-long debate.
Shaukat Yusufzai, the former provincial general secretary of the PTI, was once one of the most influential ministers in the PTI-led government but was also removed from the cabinet for being ‘inefficient’. Elected from PK-2 Peshawar, Shaukat Yusufzai was holding the portfolios of information and health at one time but the party’s central leadership was reportedly dissatisfied with his performance and he was punished for his ‘inefficiency’ an year ago.
The provincial assembly constituency PK-3 Peshawar was once considered the stronghold of Awami National Party and late Bashir Ahmad Bilour had been elected from it to the provincial assembly five consecutive times. In the May 2013 general election, PTI MPA Javed Naseem had won the seat against ANP’s Haroon Bilour by a big margin. He too was not considered loyal to the party and his basic membership was terminated when he raised the slogan ‘Go Khattak Go’ against the incumbent Chief Minister Pervez Khattak.
Even his loyalty was doubted in the Senate election and he was compelled not to cast his vote in the Senate polls in March this year. Javed Nasim is now considered a ‘declared dissident’ by the PTI members for speaking against his own government and ministers even on the assembly floor. Yaseen Khalil, the president of PTI Peshawar district and former advisor to chief minister, was also declared ‘inefficient’ by his own party and the chief minister when he was accused of recruiting his own people in some government and semi-government departments.
Elected from PK-5 Peshawar on the PTI ticket, Yaseen Khalil was termed as ‘zero’ by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on the assembly floor when he had dared to allege that the chief minister was more ‘corrupt’ and ‘inefficient’ than anybody else.
Another PTI MPA elected from PK-7 Peshawar, Mehmood Jan, belongs to an influential political family of Peshawar district but he also speaks against his government off and on and is still active member of the PTI’s disgruntled group led by PTI MPA Qurban Ali Khan from Nowshera.
Ironically, of the five abovementioned PTI MPAs from Peshawar, three were cabinet members and they have one thing in common for putting the blame on the chief minister when they were accused or punished but did not speak a single word against central leadership of the party. Rather, they showed full support to the party manifesto and policy against corruption.
The central leadership of the PTI had also sacked two provincial ministers belonging to Aftab Sherpao’s Qaumi Watan Party on corruption charges about a year ago but recently an understanding has been reached between the two parties to give share in the provincial cabinet and deputy speaker’s office of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly to the once ‘corrupt’ QWP.