PESHAWAR: The Election Commission of Pakistan will appoint caretaker chief minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after six-member parliamentary committee failed to choose a consensus candidate for the slot.

“The committee discussed and examined the referred nominees for the slot of caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in detail, but did not agree on any person and showed its inability for finalisation a name of any person for appointment of the caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from the referred nominees,” said a letter that carries signatures of the members of the committee.

“The committee could not reach consensus on any of the four nominees from the two sides. Now ECP will select caretaker chief minister from the four nominees,” said Malik Noor Saleem Khan, a member of the committee who blamed Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf for the disagreement.

“We realised that PTI was neither endorsing our (JUI-F) nominees nor trusted in its own candidates for the slot of caretaker chief minister,” said Mr Khan, who represented JUI-F in the parliamentary committee meeting. He said that the meeting lasted for 15 minutes and PTI members immediately left for Banigala.

Following the disagreement, Naseerullah Khattak, the secretary of the provincial assembly, was called from Peshawar late night to write a letter to the speaker to take onward necessary action.

On the other hand, four opposition parties in the outgoing assembly and Jamaat-i-Islami had rejected the parliamentary committee.

The committee held its meeting at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad on Saturday night, but ended without reaching an agreement on the selection of the caretaker chief minister.

Speaker Asad Qaisar will refer the names of four nominees to ECP to select one of them for the slot of caretaker chief minister.

The parliamentary committee was constituted when Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and the leader of opposition in the outgoing assembly, Maulana Lutfur Rehman, failed to agree on a consensus candidate for the slot.

PTI was represented in the meeting by three former ministers — Shah Farman, Atif Khan and Mehmood Khan — while JUI-F team comprised Malik Noor Saleem Khan, Mehmood Batni and Mufti Fazal Ghafoor. JUI-F did not include MPAs of the outgoing assembly from other opposition parties in the committee.

Earlier, Pervez Khattak had proposed the names of former accountant general Himayatullah Khan and former chief secretary Ijaz Qureshi for caretaker chief minister while JUI-F had recommended Manzoor Afridi, brother of PTI Senator Ayub Afridi, and retired Justice Dost Mohammad Khan.

Deadlock over appointment of caretaker chief minister developed when Pervez Khattak initially endorsed candidacy of the opposition leader’s nominee Manzoor Afridi for the slot and then immediately withdrew it. Sources said that Manzoor Afridi was still first choice of JUI-F.

Speaker Asad Qaisar constituted parliamentary committee under Article 224 (2) of the Constitution to select any of the four nominees from the two sides. After disagreement among the members of the committee, the speaker will refer names of the nominees to ECP for final decision within two days, reads Article 224 (3) of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2018