K-P speaker notifies provincial assembly committee

Other parties reject the panel consisting three members each of PTI, JUI-F

PESHAWAR: The matter to decide caretaker chief minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) went to a committee of the provincial assembly as Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Opposition Leader Maulana Lutfur Rahman could not agree on a name for the slot.

The K-P Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser on Friday notified the committee of six members comprising Shah Farman, Atif Khan and Mehmood Khan from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Noor Saleem Khan, Mehmood Khan Betani and Mufti Fazal Ghafoor from opposition Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F).

Under Article-224(A) of the Constitution, the opposition leader and CM has to decide a name for the caretaker chief minister slot within three days of the dissolution of the provincial assembly and if both do not agree on a name then the matter is referred to the provincial assembly committee.

The committee has to finalise a name within three days and in case the committee does not agree on a name within the prescribed period, the nominations are sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) which decides a name for the slot within two days.

The speaker on Friday notified the committee which has to agree on a name from among the four pitched for the slot by the JUI-F and the PTI. As per the notification, the opposition has given the names of Manzoor Afridi and Justice (retd) Dost Mohammad Khan for the slot while the PTI has nominated retired bureaucrats Himayat Ullah Khan and Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi as the interim head of the provincial administration.

The matter went to the committee when negotiations between CM Khattak and opposition leader Lutfur Rahman ended without any agreement over a name on Thursday night.

Other opposition parties reject committee

Other opposition parties in the K-P Assembly have totally rejected the parliamentary committee as all the members in the committee from the opposition’s side are from the JUI-F.

“The deadlock in our province is due to the opposition leader and chief minister and the negotiations are ending without any progress because they want their own caretaker CM,” said the Awami National Party’s Sardar Hussain Babak while talking to media after a meeting of the opposition parties on Friday.

Leaders of ANP, PML-N, PPP and QWP participated in the meeting. Babak said Speaker Asad Qaiser is also a part in ’this game’ and the PTI and JUI-F have made the caretaker setup controversial.

“They want to bring their own chief minister through the committee,” Babak said. Sikandar Sherpao of the QWP said: “If the chief minister and opposition leader bring their own interim chief minister then the election process will get stained.”