Charged up: Defiant Khattak vows to cross all barricades

Says PM won’t be allowed in K-P till barricades remain

PESHAWAR: As the political tensions soared in the federal capital, Khyber-Pakhtunkwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak on Saturday made an impassioned appeal to all party workers to march towards Islamabad in full defiance of the government.

The government has placed at least six containers on the Indus Bridge, blocking off the province from Punjab.

Addressing the media at the Indus River Bridge, the chief minister warned the premier that he [PM] would be barred from entering K-P if Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf workers were not allowed to enter Islamabad.

“If you have the tanks, I have the youth; it will be difficult for the federal government to stop us,” PTI leader said.

He questioned the government how cutting off the province from the rest of the country legal while closing Islamabad was deemed illegal.

He said that the act was a clear violation of the Constitution and tantamount to creating friction amongst the federation.

Interestingly, none of the two allies of the K-P government— Jamaat-e-Islami and Qaumi Watan Party— will be part of PTI’s march.

Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) Minister for Mines and Minerals Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli stated that it was a political and individual decision and her party was not informed about any protest neither did the party seek QWP’s presence in the protest.

She stated her party could not attend the protest without being invited.

Meanwhile, JI Provincial Information Secretary Muhammad Iqbal shared similar views, and said that the political parties were holding protest demonstrations individually across the country.

“What JI is doing is doing on its own and what PTI is doing is doing on its own since these are party decisions not the provincial governments,” Iqbal concluded.

But after PTI chairman had suggested that lawmakers from the K-P assembly might quit, the opposition parties have moved into a preemptive strategy. As many as 28 lawmakers have signed a no-confidence motion against the chief minister if he tries to dissolve the assembly.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) lawmaker Shah Hussain Khan claims that “Pervaiz Khattak has lost confidence and he will not have a majority to back him”.

Sources privy to the development said the opposition were using the no-confidence move to protect the assembly from being dissolved by PTI, while the provincial government was using it as a bargain chip to pressurise the federal government.

Although the PTI government spokesperson Mushtaq Ghani refuted the news, saying that neither the PTI lawmakers had resigned and nor did they intend to dissolve the K-P Assembly.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2016.