A parliamentary committee was constituted on Friday to select caretaker chief minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as government and the opposition failed to reach consensus on the matter.
The six-member committee constituted to decide on the matter comprises Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members Shah Farman, Atif Khan and Mahmood Khan and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) members Noor Saleem Khan, Mehmood Khan Betani and Mufti Fazal Ghafoor.
The committee will announce its decision within three days.
However, other opposition parties are reportedly out of the loop. Speaking to media, ANP’s parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said Leader of the Opposition Maulana Lutfur Rahman was representing his own party instead of speaking collectively for the opposition.
After the withdrawal of Manzoor Afridi’s nomination for the interim CM slot, KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Opposition Leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman failed to agree on a candidate. The last round of negotiations between Khattak and Rehman ended without consensus on Thursday night.
The opposition had pitched Justice (r) Dost Mohammad Khan and Manzoor Afridi for the slot, while the government nominated bureaucrat Inayatullah Khan and Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi.
On Thursday, Pervez Khattak, Asad Qaiser and Shaukat Yousafzai from the PTI and Lutfur Rehman and Mehmood Khan Betani from the opposition held the final round of negotiations in Islamabad but failed to reach consensus.
As per Article 224 (A), in case the committee also fails to finalise a candidate in three days, the decision will be handed over to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The KP government on May 28 had completed its five-year tenure and the provincial law department issued a notification dissolving the assembly but the name of the caretaker chief minister remains in limbo.
Published in Daily Times, June 2nd 2018.
