QUETTA: Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai has defended his party’s alliance with the ruling PML-N and JUI-F parties, saying that the friends who did not like this alliance should quit and make their own party or he would himself oust them.

Speaking at a condolence reference on Friday in Quetta, he said the party would keep this alliance intact at all costs for the rights of Pakhtuns and restore peace and order in the region. “Alliance with PML-N and JUI-F was made with great efforts and difficulties. Those friends who don’t like this alliance and have differences over the party policy, I would advise them to leave the party and form their own,” he said, adding that he would remove them from PkMAP if needed.

“I tried to convince them about the alliance and told them that talking against party policy regarding alliance outside the party is not correct,” he said. “I restrained a lot on the issue and if they do not behave, there will be no other option to oust them from the party even if I remain alone in the party.”

Mr Achakzai said if the PML-N and JUI-F promised to support us for the rights of Pakhtuns, PkMAP would not field its candidates against theirs in the next election and would even run their election campaign.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2022