- KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra administers oath to retired justice in presence of former CM Khattak, dignitaries
PESHAWAR: Former Supreme Court Justice Dost Muhammad Khan on Wednesday took oath as the caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
The oath was administered by KP Governor Zafar Iqbal Jhagra in a ceremony held at the Governor’s House that was attended by former chief minister Pervez Khattak, advocate general and senior lawyers.
On Tuesday, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had named the former top court justice for the post of caretaker KP chief minister.
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) had proposed Justice Khan’s name along with businessman Manzoor Afridi, whereas PTI had suggested the names of two bureaucrats Ijaz Qureshi and Hamayatullah Khan.
The matter to finalise the name for the interim slot was forwarded to the electoral watchdog after a parliamentary committee constituted by former KP Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser, comprising Shah Farman, Atif Khan and Mehmood Khan from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Noor Saleem Khan, Mehmood Khan Betani and Mufti Fazal Ghafoor of the JUI-F representing the opposition, failed to reach consensus on the issue.
The opposition and government resorted to forming the committee following consistent disagreements between them. Although the KP government completed its five-year tenure on May 28 and the provincial law department issued a notification dissolving the assembly, the name of caretaker chief minister remained in limbo after PTI’s withdrawal of Manzoor Afridi’s nomination for the interim slot.
The PTI had agreed on the name of Manzoor Afridi for the caretaker chief minister and the party even released an official handout and a picture of Afridi with party chairman Imran Khan at his Banigala residence.
However, within 24 hours, the PTI reversed its decision and withdrew the name of Afridi. The opposition parties in the KP Assembly had alleged that then chief minister Pervez Khattak and the JUI-F leaders had received huge amounts from Manzoor Afridi for his nomination as the chief minister.
The charges, however, were denied both by Khattak and the JUI-F leadership. Manzoor Afridi is known as the financier of the JUI-F and his brother Ayub Afridi is a Senator on PTI’s ticket.
The PTI chief reportedly reversed the decision after getting reports on the social media that Manzoor Afridi had sponsored the JUI-F campaign against the FATA merger.
