Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Five dissident members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly belonging to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have joined hands with the dissident members of the party in the National Assembly.

The dissident members of the PTI described the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa budget as discriminatory and walked out of the budget session on Saturday. They also tore apart copies of the budget document. They also contacted other members of the party and persuaded them to support them against the provincial government’s “discriminatory attitude”.

The members of the dissident group were of the view that the provincial budget was discriminatory and some of the provincial lawmakers of the ruling PTI manipulated the budget to give maximum benefit to their constituencies. They said that these people ignored the rest of the cabinet while allocating funds under the Annual Development Programme (ADP).

The dissident members of the PTI said the reason for leaving the budget session was purely unjust distribution of funds in the budget.

Lawmakers Yasin Khalil, Jamshed Mohmand, Qurban Ali Khan, Babar Saleem and Shakeel Ahmad, adviser to the chief minister, comprise the dissident group of the PTI in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. They not only walked out of the budget session, but also criticised Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak.

According to the sources, the dissident members of the PTI joined hands with the disgruntled MNAs of the party and pledged their support to them.

Speaking to Daily Times, the dissident members of the PTI said that they contacted party chairman Imran Khan and informed him about their stance on the budget. They said that Khan had assured them that their issues would be addressed soon.

One of the members of the dissident group said the group would decide their new course of action in collaboration with the dissident MNAs if their concerns were not allayed before Eid.

It is pertinent to mention here that five MNAs — Junaid Akbar, Amirullah Marwat, Khyal Zaman, Sajid Nawaz, and Dawar Kundi – formed a dissident group in protest against the alleged misuse of power and funds by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister. These MNAs confirmed that some dissident members of the provincial assembly had contacted them and a meeting of the two groups would be held soon to discuss the future course of action.