PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi has reportedly planned to appoint a number of disgruntled Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members of the provincial assembly as parliamentary secretaries, along with official offices and vehicles, in a bid to defuse a growing rebellion within the ruling party’s parliamentary ranks, sources told The News on Tuesday.
The development comes after more than 30 PTI MPAs skipped a parliamentary party meeting convened by the chief minister on Sunday, a highly visible display of dissent that exposed the depth of frustration among a section of the ruling party’s legislators who have been left out of the provincial cabinet.
According to sources familiar with the development, the chief minister has been engaged in a series of consultations with party lawmakers in recent days as concerns have mounted over internal cohesion and parliamentary discipline within the ruling party. “Some immature people roaming around the chief minister are feeding him wrong information about the disgruntled MPAs. There is no opposition group in the party but yes it’s true that over 30 MPAs are
not happy with Sohail Afridi and his style of governance,” said one of the party’s estranged MPAs.
This correspondent spoke to five PTI MPAs and all of them confirmed their annoyance with the chief minister saying he was neither giving importance to the party nor the province.
“We have been asking Sohail Afridi to focus on Imran Khan’s release as it’s our priority number one, focus on governance and reduce involvement of irrelevant unelected people in the government affairs. He has stopped talking to MPAs, suspecting them of working against him,” the lawmaker said.
Another PTI MPA also confirmed that the chief minister has started approaching some of their colleagues and offered them parliamentary secretary positions.
“If you ask me, I will never accept parliamentary secretary position, as I am not interested in an official car and fuel. Our struggle is for the release of our party leader Imran Khan, good governance and resolving public’s issues,” he argued.
Sources said the dissident bloc, which has been meeting informally, held a separate consultative session on Tuesday to discuss its next course of action. Though the details of what transpired at the meeting were not disclosed, party insiders said the gathering signalled that the grievances of the group had not been resolved and that its members were weighing their options.
“The chief minister has assured lawmakers that their concerns will be addressed.
Several members are likely to be accommodated as parliamentary secretaries, with official vehicles and offices” a member of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly told The News, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. Sources said the proposed appointments would mark a departure from previous practice.
Political observers in Peshawar noted that the episode underscored the difficulties facing the PTI provincial government in managing a large backbench that feels politically sidelined.This correspondent tried to seek comment from Minister of Information and Public Relations Shafiullah Jan but he neither answered the phone call nor responded to text messages.
