PTI president Advocate Gohar Ali Khan on Thursday said party founder Imran Khan had ordered party legislators to resign from the presidencies and memberships of standing committees of the Punjab Assembly.
In August, Imran had said that the party should not participate in by-elections triggered by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) disqualifying a large number of PTI members and leaders in connection with their involvement in the May 9, 2023 riots and that its lawmakers should quit all parliamentary standing committees, including the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Subsequently, PTI legislators started resigning as members of parliamentary committees and also Senate standing committees. It was not decided at the time whether Punjab lawmakers would do that.
However, speaking to the media outside Adiala Jail today after meeting Imran, Advocate Gohar said, “Khan has issued a directive regarding Punjab. We have 107 MPAs in Punjab and we have around 14 standing committees. Khan has also issued the directive to Punjab that our party members will resign from the memberships and chairmanships of the standing committees, such as we have done it in the National Assembly and the Senate.”
When asked about speculation about his removal as party president a day after Ali Amin Gandapur was told to resign as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, Gohar dismissed the entire matter as “just rumours” and said the party was stable and there were no issues over the presidency.
“There is no problem with my presidency.”
On developments on the KP chief minister’s position, Gohar said Imran praised Gandapur as “one of my few loyal allies” and was a strong member of the party, but the PTI founder had a firm stance on terrorism that any operation against him without a political strategy would fail.
“Whatever operation is carried out, any collateral damage radicalizes people further. That’s why Khan said our party, government and province cannot afford it, so we wanted some drastic change.”
He said Imran wanted the transition in the KP government to be completed as quickly as possible, adding that the cabinet would continue but the party founder would finalize the names once the new government was formed.
