Gandapur says Imran to decide about mending ties with establishment

RAWALPINDI: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur said Tuesday that incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan will decide about mending ties with the establishment.

Gandapur said this while speaking to the media after meeting the ousted premier in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, where he has been incarcerated following his conviction in the Toshakhana case in August last year.

The newly-elected KP CM said that both the establishment and institutions "are ours" but the decision for reconciliation with the establishment will be made by Khan, who is the only prime minister to be ousted through a no-confidence motion.

Insisting on his strong stance towards the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the firebrand PTI leader said that the government in the Centre stole his party's mandate.

"We will not reconcile with mandate thieves. We will create such a system that no one can steal the mandate in future," he said.

The KP CM said the provincial government would maintain a working relationship with the federal government in the future.

“The federal government has stolen our mandate and we will not compromise with vote thieves,” he alleged.

He also demanded the chief justice form an inquiry commission to probe the May 9 events when violent protests broke out in many parts of the country following the PTI founder’s arrest in a corruption case last year.

“Our women workers are in jails. We demand that those who benefited from the May 9 [riots] be held accountable,” he added.

Speaking about the hooliganism and verbal assault on a party’s woman lawmaker in the recent session of the KP Assembly, Gandapur blamed the PML-N lawmaker Sobia Shahid for using “woman card”.

“The woman was at fault but I apologised to her as CM,” he said.