The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was dissolved on Wednesday after Governor Haji Ghulam Ali signed the dissolution summary. The development comes three days after the Punjab Assembly was dissolved as a part of PTI chief Imran Khan’s plan to press the government on holding early elections.

“I Haji Ghulam Ali, Governor of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, under Clause (1) Article 112 of the Constitution of Pakistan 1973, dissolve the Provincial Assembly of the KP, with immediate effect. Henceforth, the provincial cabinet also stands dissolved,” said a letter issued by the Governor House.

KP Chief Minister Mehmood Khan sent the summary for the dissolution of the provincial assembly to Governor Haji Ghulam Ali on Tuesday.

Under Article 112 of the constitution of Pakistan, “the Governor shall dissolve the Provincial Assembly if so advised by the Chief Minister; and the Provincial Assembly shall, unless sooner dissolved, stand dissolved at the expiration of forty-eight hours after the Chief Minister has so advised.”

The chief minister would continue to work until the announcement of the caretaker setup. This is the rule. In the next three days, Mehmood and KP Assembly Opposition leader Akram Khan Durrani would suggest the name for interim chief minister.

Efforts are made to reach a consensus on one name. If this does not happen, the speaker sends it to a parliamentary committee that needs to decide on the caretaker chief minister in three days.

If the parliamentary committee, too, fails to reach a consensus, the issue lands in the Election Commission of Pakistan. The country’s top electoral authority then names the caretaker chief minister.

This whole process takes nine days if the lawmakers fail to make headway in picking up an interim CM.

The opposition in the KP Assembly had claimed that the provincial government was forcing them to save the House from getting dissolved. They had favoured the intention to go for fresh elections in view of the local government elections.

Petition against the dissolution of assemblies

A petition was moved to the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday challenging the dissolution of provincial assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

Petitioner Shaukat Rasheed had named chief secretaries of two provinces, the Establishment Division, Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination, secretary of parliamentary affairs, and PTI as respondents in the case.

The petition said that as per the constitution, an assembly had a five-year term and it was supposed to work for the welfare of the people. It was “necessary to have solid grounds” to dissolve the assembly and it couldn’t be done for the sake of personal wishes, it added.

It further said no public referendum was conducted before dissolving the Punjab assembly and no any solid reason was mentioned in the summary. The petitioner urged the court to set aside the decision regarding the dissolution of the assembly without any reason.

It alleged that dissolving the assemblies was an act to disrespect the public mandate. “Such decisions for political gains would cause a financial burden on the country’s economy,” he said.

“There was no other choice for the governor to sign the summary,” ANP’s Zahid Khan told Aaj News.

Despite that, Zahid hailed the decision saying the PTI, which has been ruling the province for the past 10 years, has “failed to deliver”.

“When we were leaving the government in 2013, our debt burden was Rs57 billion. Now it stands at Rs1,000 billion,” he said and claimed that the ministers were paying extortion to terrorists.

“Let’s see what the caretaker setup does with the province,” he said.