Minister says no plan to support any in-house change

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Senior Minister for IT, Science and Technology, and Food Muhammad Atif Khan on Monday said that he neither had any group in the party nor supported any in-house change.

Talking to reporters after a media sensitization on Wheat Flour Fortification workshop here, he said that a few people who were leaving the party were taking the step for small benefits. They either have no ideological affiliation with any party or their ideology was very weak.

“These people say that their issues were not resolved. If they had issues, they should have left the party quite earlier. Still, they don’t have any moral courage to resign from their assembly seats and go to the public and seek a fresh mandate,” he added.

He said they had been elected to parliament on the PTI ticket by the party workers, adding that he was against floor-crossing earlier and he still considered it dishonesty.

The minister said the opposition leaders were not only corrupt but were traitors.

Atif Khan said that Pakistan had for the first time in its history devised an independent foreign policy and was implementing it.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan had clearly told the United States that Pakistan would protect its own interests.

“Imran Khan responded ‘absolutely not’ when the US pressured Pakistan to protect western interests,” he said.

He said even the disgruntled party workers rallied around Imran Khan when the opposition tried to create problems for him after he put the country's foreign policy on the right track.

“Our workers came out with the same old zeal and passion in support of Imran Khan. The party workers are convinced that this temporary phase of inflation would pass but the country would not be able to sustain another phase of corruption of the former rulers. The party workers say that the former rulers would again make the country dependent on the West,” he said.