Pervez Rashid calls Imran Khan KP’s ‘de-facto’ CM

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information, Pervez Rashid on Sunday called Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan ‘de-facto chief minister’ of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ‘who takes the province’s decisions at Bani Gala’.

He was addressing a press conference held here to express reaction to Imran Khan’s media talk statement in which he criticized Punjab government and ECP.

Pervez Rashid said Imran Khan does not abide by any code of conduct.

“If he (Imran Khan) failed to accept and follow the code of conduct laid out by Election Commission of Pakistan, it would turn the ballot exercise into a fighting arena,” he warned.

He said the upcoming by-polls will be contest between those who deliver and those who are only good at hurling allegations.

He pointed out that the ECP has barred assembly members from participating in the election campaign. This restriction applies to PTI just the way it does to the Prime Minister and Chief Minister Punjab.

Coming down hard on Imran Khan he said: “Even when Chief Minister of KP has to walk he does that by holding the finger of Imran Khan.”

He claimed that KP government did not even spend a single penny on Hydro Electric project.

The Information Minister said ‘we have nothing to do with the deactivation of a twitter account of Imran Khan’s family’.

He said the government had to waste billions of rupees to provide security to Imran Khan’s sit-in protest. “This sizeable amount could have been utilized towards development of education sector and building better health care for the people,” he added.

Earlier, Imran Khan labeled Punjab police personnel as ‘thugs’ and exhorted his party activists to stay vigilant and capture with the help of their cell phones any wrongdoings committed by the law enforcers on the eve of upcoming by-elections in Punjab.

Khan said his candidates would defeat ‘those who stole the public mandate’ in the 2013 general elections.