ISLAMABAD: From his prison cell, Imran Khan has done what many in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) high command did not have the nerve to attempt on the outside – pulled the plug on Ali Amin Gandapur.
Political commentators say this was not a reshuffle. It was a political decapitation. Khan, who continues to run the show from Adiala more efficiently than most do from the Islamabad’s power corridors, has sent a blunt message to his party’s provincial elite: if you are not fighting, you are finished.
They claim that Ali Amin Gandapur – once touted as the roughneck who could hold the PTI fort in KP through thick and thin – turned out to be little more than a walking shrug. His time in office was defined by spectacular inactivity, strategic silence, and a criminal inability to mobilise the party faithful when it mattered most.
When Islamabad was burning, Gandapur was nowhere to be found – except maybe in a protocol convoy heading the other way.
When the party needed fire, he offered fog. The man who once swaggered into KP with a lion’s mane and a loudspeaker, exited with a whimper – outmanoeuvred, outclassed, and ultimately out of favour.
But Gandapur did not just underperform – he overstepped. His now-infamous tirade against Aleema Khan was political suicide.
For a party built on cultish loyalty to its incarcerated supremo, attacking the sister is blasphemy. Imran Khan did not just take note – he took names. And Gandapur’s was at the top of the list.
Enter Sohail Afridi: Thirty-five, barrel-chested with youthful rage, and carrying the ideological purity of a man who has not tasted too much protocol just yet.
A by-product of PTI’s own political Madressah – the Insaf Student Federation – Afridi’s rise is no accident. He has been groomed for this moment, and his PK-70 landslide in 2024 general elections was less an election and more a coronation.
Within PTI circles, the Afridi buzz started long before the latest power shuffle. It peaked when he took to the KP Assembly floor after the brazen arrest of PTI MNAs from inside Parliament in Islamabad.
He did not mince words; didn’t play nice; didn’t hide behind restraint. Unlike Gandapur, who tried to broker peace in a party addicted to war, Afridi never blinked. When the crackdown came post-May 9, he didn’t vanish. He doubled down – rallies, hashtags, resistance committees; while others went underground or underwater, Afridi went viral.
But now comes the hangover. Running a movement is one thing; running KP is another beast altogether. Afridi inherits a province buckling under debt, short on cash, and caught in the crossfire of militancy, bad governance, and internal mutiny.
The civil bureaucracy despises PTI. The police are on edge. And half the party’s local electables are already shopping for new political homes.
Will Afridi govern or just growl? Can the same megaphone politics that got him here actually deliver governance? That’s the billion-rupee question.
One thing is certain: this isn’t just about KP. This was a power message broadcast nationwide – Khan is still in charge, and he’s still cutting the fat from prison.
And for the rest of PTI’s flailing front men, let this be a cautionary tale. Performance is no longer optional. Loyalty isn’t negotiable. And being “around since the dharna days” won’t save you anymore.
The king has spoken. The chessboard has shifted. Sohail Afridi now holds the front line, and the rest of us? We’ll be watching.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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