PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Peoples Party has urged Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to immediately fulfil their commitment of bifurcating Chitral district.

PPP MPA from Chitral Saleem Khan told reporters at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday that the PTI chief and provincial CM had promised during a public meeting in Nov 2017 to declare upper Chitral a district in three weeks but the promise wasn’t fulfilled afterward.

He said the PTI announcement on upper Chitral district was meant to misguide the people and therefore, Imran Khan and Pervez Khattak should seek public apology for it to prevent legal action by the PPP.

Mr Saleem said the announcement had made the district lose one provincial assembly seat.

PPP leader asks election commission to disqualify Imran

“Now, Chitral, the most populous district in the province, will have representation in provincial assembly with just one seat,” he said.

The PPP leader said the chief minister had always talked about bringing all underprivileged districts on a par with the developed ones but the time proved that the PTI leaders were not true in their words and that they wanted just to misguide the people by hollow slogans.

He said the provincial government had obtained huge loans belying the PTI chief’s pre-election claim that if elected to power, the party won’t take loan of even a single penny.

Mr Saleem demanded of the Election Commission of Pakistan to disqualify the PTI chairman as MNA insisting that Imran Khan is no more sadiq (truthful) and ameen (righteous).

He said the PTI government had got loans from the Asian Development Bank, other foreign financial institutions taking the province’s debts to Rs300 billion.

The PPP leader said after coming to power after sweeping the upcoming elections in the province, his party would declare Upper Chitral a separate district.

“Our party leadership believes that the people are the centre of power,” he said, adding that PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would steer the country out of crisis.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2018