3 former PPP ministers from AJK join PTI

MUZAFFARABAD: In what is seen as a major blow to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), its three former ministers and sitting lawmakers of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly on Wednesday joined Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Former AJK ministers Abdul Majid Khan, Muhammad Hussain Sargala and Arshad Hussain met with the PTI chief Imran Khan at his residence in Bani Gala before joining his party. The former ministers will now contest the AJK elections on the PTI tickets.

General elections at the semi-autonomous region are scheduled to be held in the second week of July.

Both Majid Khan and Sagala were elected on Kashmiri refugees seats while Arshad Hussain, the younger brother of the PTI’s AJK President Barrrister Sultan Mahmood, won the elections on the PPP ticket from Mirpur in 2011.

Speaking on the occasion, Majid Khan said the PPP had failed to deliver in the AJK during the last five years.  “My voters are settled in different areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and I was really impressed by the governance of the PTI that motivated me to join the party,” Majid Khan said.

He said the people in the AJK also wanted change and justice to bring the region at par with the other developed areas of the country, adding that Imran Khan is the only option to make the country prosperous and corruption free.

The other two former ministers said they felt proud to be the part of a party which had taken a stand against corruption. On the occasion, Barrister Mahmood, Chaudhry Muhmmad Sarwar and Jehangir Tareen were also present.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2016.