PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Chairman Imran Khan has rejected Manzoor Afridi’s candidacy for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s interim chief minister.
Party sources claimed that Imran has asked Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to decide on a new name. The CM’s spokesperson Shaukat Yousufzai, moreover, claimed that the party had never finalised Afridi’s name.
He also added that leaders had held a meeting on Sunday night to discuss the caretaker CM, while CM Khattak would meet the leader of the opposition in the provincial assembly on Monday (today) to discuss the issue.
Imran Khan, however, had reportedly earlier congratulated Manzoor on being selected as the interim CM. Manzoor and his brother Ayub Afridi, a senator for the PTI, had visited Imran Khan’s Bani Gala residence on Saturday night, after which the party released a statement congratulating Manzoor on his appointment.
Other parties, however, condemned the appointment as soon as the statement was released, with Pakistan Peoples’ Party leader Nafeesha Shah remarking that Manzoor had ‘sullied his reputation’ after meeting Khan.
“Manzoor Afridi is a donor of JUI-F, while his brother Senator Ayub Afridi is a donor of PTI. This is the real face of Imran Khan and Fazl-ur-Rehman’s politics,” Shah added.
PTI’s vocal spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry, meanwhile, claimed that the opposition had nominated Manzoor, with the CM merely giving his consent to the nomination.
