PPP loses another stalwart leader

Iftikhar Khan Jhagra laid to rest in K-P hometown

PESHAWAR: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s senior provincial leader and former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa education minister Iftikhar Khan Jhagra passed away on Tuesday.

He was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard in Jhagra by locals, party workers and political leaders.

The late political leader joined PPP in 1983 and stayed committed to serving the ideology of the party, although he jumped ship twice in his three-decade long career.



On November, 2011, the time when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was gaining momentum in K-P, he also announced to join it.

After he joined PTI, Jhagra told a press conference that the party leadership was ignoring provincial leaders and decided to leave the party.

His stay with PTI was very short and he re-joined PPP before the 2013 general election.



He came back to the PPP fold in December 2012, but later lost to a PTI candidate in the general polls.

After his loss and PPP’s bad performance in 2013 general election, he once again joined the PTI amid fanfare at his village in which chairman PTI Imran Khan also participated.

Jhagra in a press conference alleged the whole election process was pre-planned to bring certain political parties to power in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

However his loyalty for the PTI this time again didn’t last long and he re-joined his own party with which he was associated till his death.



Jhagra has contested elections eight times over the course of his career— being elected five times from various parties and as an independent candidate.

Chairman PPP Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the party’s provincial leadership paid homage to his services for people, party and democracy in the country.