PESHAWAR: The provincial PTI leaders on Thursday asked the federal government to address the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s concerns about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

Addressing an Insaf Student Federation seminar on the CPEC at the Nishtar Hall here, KP Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar and provincial government’s spokesman Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani criticised the federal government for what they claimed excluding western route from the CPEC project.

Mr. Qaisar said the PTI government in the province would never make a compromise on the rights of the province.

He said Pakistan was a federation of four provinces so all provinces should treated equally.

“The federal government should stop deceiving us (KP) with lollipop and fulfil its promise of building western route of the CPEC with all facilities,” he said.

The PA speaker said the federal government should stop trying to deceive KP people by constructing an expressway on the western leg of the corridor project.

PTI leader says court will be moved for construction of CPEC’s western route

He said he would approach the court of law on the matter after consulting other parties and his lawyers. “Not only KP but Balochistan and Sindh too have voiced concerns about the CPEC project. The centre shouldn’t deny smaller provinces the opportunities to improve their lot,” he said.

Mr. Qaisar said the KP Assembly had passed several resolutions demanding the building of the CPEC western route in line with the decisions of Islamabad’s multiparty conference.

He insisted 70 percent of CPEC-related projects were limited to Punjab.

Later, Mr. Ghani said the federal government hadn’t allocated funds for the western route of the CPEC project.

He said it was not China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and instead, it was China-Punjab Economic Corridor and that all promises of the federal government on it were lies.

The government’s spokesman said the PTI would agitate and move the court to ensure the construction of the CPEC’s western route. He said no one could stop the PTI’s ‘tsunami’ from reaching Islamabad on Nov 2.

Mr. Ghani said KP was a war-torn province and therefore, it should be given due share in development projects.

He said it was unfortunate that neither the western route’s construction was currently part of the CPEC project nor had the centre made budgetary allocations for it despite repeated promises.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2016