PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Sunday ended its alliance with Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government alleging it of not supporting PTI’s stance on Panamagate issue.
After breaking of the alliance, two QWP ministers, Sikandar Sherpao and Aneesa Zaib, have stepped down. Two special assistants, Karim Khan and Arshad Khan, have also tendered their resignations.
QWP chief Aftab Sherpao said driving his party out of the provincial government was a violation of a written agreement by the ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf. “Imran Khan is isolating himself and it appears that the PTI wants itself to be politically martyred.”
This is the second time that PTI ended its fragile alliance with QWP in four years. The PTI said its ally in the province didn’t support its stance on Panama Papers case in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
In 2013, PTI chairman Imran Khan ended his party’s alliance with QWP alleging two of its ministers of corruption.
However, two years later in 2015, the QWP was again made part of the KP government with PTI’s efforts. At that moment, a PTI delegation visited QWP’s Bakht Bedar Khan and convinced him to withdraw his petition in the Peshawar High Court, which he had filed against the PTI chairman demanding him to prove his allegations against QWP.
With QWP out, the PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami have been left with 70 members in the provincial assembly.
