KARACHI: Nothing is going wrong with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government, said KP Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak while speaking in the Geo News programme, ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Saath’ on Tuesday. He said it was the right of the opposition to stage protests but the protests should be peaceful. “We are writing to chief justice for the formation of Judicial Commission after the allegations of rigging in the local bodies’ elections. The opposition parties may determine their own terms of reference for the Judicial Commission. He informed that PML-Q Sikandar Sherpao, Jamaat-e-Islami and National Democratic Front (Qaumi Jamhoori Ittehad) attended the All Parties Conference (APC). It was decided in the APC to jointly approach the opposition. He remarked that the same opposition parties had been insisting that democracy was at stake when Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) was staging protest against rigging in the general election. But the same parties did not see any danger to the democracy. The chief minister said, “Our doors are open for the opposition parties.” The Chief Election Commissioner sees a third hand. We would have made our own arrangements had the Election Commissioner told us that we could interfere in affairs of police. We had requested the Election Commissioner to seek the help of army, but it was known only two days before the election that the army would not be deployed.” Pervaiz Khattak said he had been requesting the police on the polling day and it appeared that quarrel on the polling day was pre-planned. Participating in the programme, leader of the Awami National Party (ANP) Mian Iftikhar Hussain said staging protest was their democratic right. He said Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak on one side had offered for talks while on the other side he was engaged in manipulating results of the polls. Pointing out yet another conspiracy he said the traders and businessmen, who had sided with the opposition, were being called to the Chief Minister House and were being forced to oppose the opposition. Mian Iftikhar said PTI was indulged in 100 percent rigging and was talking about judicial commission just to regain the goodwill it had lost. He said they were going to the people’s court against the PTI’s injustice and rigging. He said the PTI, being under pressure, was accepting all demands but it was not sure what would be its next step. PTI leader Jahangir Tareen said the party was making efforts to select strong candidates for the local bodies’ polls in Punjab. Referring to the party’s poor performance in the Gilgit-Baltistan election, he argued that it was just eight months that the party was formed there. However, the party would offer better performance in the next polls, Tareen said. It was entirely unexpected that the party would lose with such huge margin in the Mandi Bahauddin election. It was a big challenge for them to prove popularity of PTI through ballot box.
