ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Pervez Khattak said on Tuesday that the ruling Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) has superseded Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the recently-held election for mayor, negating the impression that the party was wiped out from the province.

Khattak, who is also PTI KP president, while addressing a press conference along with State Minister for Information Farrukh Habib, said the PTI’s opponents had staged a propaganda after the JUI-F emerged victorious with a thin majority in the first phase of local government elections.

Khattak said the PTI had won nearly 18 tehsils in the first phase of LG elections, while four independent candidates had also joined the party.

He confessed that the PTI provincial organisation had taken the first phase of elections quite easy due to which parties such as the JUI-F managed to get some seats, adding the PTI would give a humiliating defeat to all the parties in the second phase.

Speaking on the occasion, Habib said the PTI government would complete its five-year term with the support of its allied political parties.

There was no threat to Prime Minister Imran Khan from the opposition’s no-confidence move, he said, adding Khan would become prime minister again for the second term in the next general elections to be held in 2023.

He said the PTI had strengthened its position after re-polling for the first phase of local government elections in KP.

“The prime minister had assigned the task to Prevez Khattak to work hard for the victory of party’s candidates in the second phase of LG elections,” he added.

Taking a jibe at JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, he said that in recent defeat for the mayor election in Dera Ismail Khan, the JUI-F must stop calling itself a popular party.

“If it [the JUI-F] been so popular, it would have won the polls for the mayor election in DI Khan,” he added.

He said all those involved in plunder of national wealth would have to face the wrath of law, as there was no escape from the law as long as Imran Khan was the prime minister.

“There will be a ruthless accountability of all those who plundered the national wealth…people like Maulana Rehman are not going to see power in their lives and instead they will be behind the bars for their corruptions,” he added.

Habib said the government had put the economy on the right track under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, adding the country would be prosperous soon due to the prudent economic policies of the PTI government.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022