KP Assembly session delayed as PTI dissent grows over Imran Khan release demand

PESHAWAR/MANSEHRA: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly session has been put off again amid the emergence of a group of dissenting PTI lawmakers who want the provincial leadership to adopt a clearer course on securing the release of former prime minister Imran Khan.

According to the latest notification issued by the assembly secretariat on Sunday, the sitting will now be held on Monday, June 15, at 2pm. The last sitting of the house was held on May 18 and was adjourned until June 1. The assembly did not meet on that date, and the speaker first deferred the session to June 8 before issuing the latest postponement.

Speaker Babar Saleem Swati told Dawn that the assembly session would be convened after the presentation of the federal budget in the National Assembly. However, the provincial assembly has remained in session for the past couple of months.

Dissident group expands

One lawmaker from the dissenting camp told Dawn that the group initially comprised 25 members but had grown to 30 in recent days. The legislator did not identify the members, saying that doing so would expose them to pressure from the party and the chief minister.

Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, one of the lawmakers aligned with the group, said they would present their political position and grievances on the assembly floor. He said he had told Speaker Swati in a recent meeting that they did not regard themselves as a dissident faction, but wanted the chief minister to make an unambiguous announcement about plans for Imran Khan’s release.

Ghani told Dawn:

"We don’t need any incentives; our one-point agenda is the decisive movement for the release of Imran Khan"

He said the group was also demanding a meeting between party leaders and relatives and Imran Khan, medical treatment for him through doctors of his choice at Shifa International Hospital, and faster court proceedings in his cases. Ghani also said intermittent protests outside Adiala Jail had not produced results, and the lawmakers now wanted to move towards a permanent sit-in that would continue until what he described as a logical conclusion.

Complaints within the party

Reports of internal differences in PTI surfaced after the induction of new ministers, advisers and special assistants, who took oath on May 22. Some lawmakers were unhappy at not being included in the provincial cabinet.

When asked whether former chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur was leading the group, Ghani said no individual was heading it and that the lawmakers had come together on a single-point agenda related to the release of the party founder.

Another dissident legislator, speaking to Dawn on condition of anonymity, said Chief Minister Sohail Afridi was troubled by the growing strength of the group. He claimed the chief minister was trying to placate lawmakers by including their development schemes in the Annual Development Program.

On June 1, when the chief minister called a parliamentary party meeting, 57 of the party’s 92 lawmakers attended. Many MPAs raised complaints before CM Afridi about corruption in government departments, the law and order situation in the province, and what they described as the indifference of police, district administration and bureaucracy to their legitimate public-interest demands.

The following day, a group of dissenting lawmakers wrote to interim party chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, expressing concern over what they called a lack of efforts by the leadership to secure Imran Khan’s release.

Efforts to defuse tensions

Speaker Swati and other party leaders were trying to persuade the dissenting lawmakers to step back. Ghani told journalists in Mansehra that Swati had met him in an effort to ease tensions.

Ghani said:

"Swati was here to defuse tensions with our group. We made it clear to him that we do not have any personal vendetta against the chief minister or any other in the government and firmly stand with PTI founding chairman Imran Khan"

One of the group’s leaders, who was said to be aware of the meeting between Swati and Ghani, claimed that the speaker had offered Ghani the position of senior provincial minister in the cabinet, but that he had refused.

Ghani said the number of like-minded lawmakers in the group was now above 30. He added:

"We, all like-minded MPAs, whose number exceeds 30, have made it clear to the chief minister that if he stages a sit-in outside the National Assembly on June 10, we all will not return until the desired results are achieved"

He further said that if the government laid the budget in the assembly without a prior meeting between CM Afridi and Imran Khan, the group would boycott the proceedings and would not assist in passing it.