The disqualification case against Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister was premeditated as it was not filed before the general elections, PTI lawmaker Sher Afzal Marwat has claimed.

“Gandapur is not acceptable to them and when he was nominated [as the KP CM], even then former prime minister Imran Khan was pressurised,” he said in an interview with Shaukat Piracha on his show Rubaroo aired on Aaj News on Tuesday.

He was speaking about a petition filed in the Election Commission of Pakistan, seeking disqualification of the KP CM for acquiring a piece of land in Dera Ismail Khan.

The country’s top electoral authority has fixed the case for hearing and asked Gandapur to appear before the district election commissioner on March 26.

The petitioner is JUI-F leader Muhammad Kafeel who contested elections as a member provincial assembly on February 8.

Marwat claimed that he had background knowledge related to the case, citing it as linked to the developments shared by party MPA Asif Khan, the son of Dost Muhammad Khan.

“Asif Khan learned that some people were searching for him and maybe he would be abducted concerning the same land for which Gandapur’s disqualification is sought. They perhaps tried to turn him as an approver and force him to become a witness in the case against Gandapur,” Marwat said and claimed that he had conveyed such a message to the KP CM.

According to the PTI MNA, such a technique did not prove to be successful and the “people wanting to kidnap Asif Khan” approached their “favourite forum”, the ECP.

Without naming the people behind such methods, he claimed that they were after Gandapur because he was the former PM’s “sepoy” who led the party after leaders quit the party following the May 9 events.

When asked, he said: “Every case against us in the ECP is serious. Whether it is a case or not, it gets serious by default, but I think they have chosen the wrong forum as ECP cannot disqualify under these provisions.”

He was of the view that such an objection has not been raised in the past and filing such a petition so after elections shows “it is premeditated.”

The host also asked him about the JUI-F’s decision to form an alliance with the PPP for the Senate election.

Marwat stated that the party took the first statement of JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman seriously, but the latter showed that his “nuisance value” was increasing after he abstained from voting for Mehmood Khan Achakzai in the presidential election.

“It will not be late that he will be part of the PDM [redux] and seek a ministry in the government,” he added.

While speaking about the Punjab government’s decision to ban Imran Khan’s meeting, he said that the problem started when the authorities kept former first lady Bushra Bibi in Bani Gala instead of the Adiala and they claimed that three Afghan nationals were arrested.

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He added that the government has so far not given any update on that. “Yesterday they again issued a threat alert for prisons in Mianwali, Attock, Adiala, and DI Khan where more than 21,000 people are incarcerated,” he said and claimed that the alert was issued for personal benefit.

“I feel they will also shift Imran Khan to Bani Gala which is not a safe place as the government cannot guarantee any safety there if any attempt was made on him,” Marwat said and claimed that the government wanted to block the Khan’s feedback coming to them.

Marwat said that the Punjab Home Department had no authority under the Prison Rules 1978 to issue such an order, citing it is against human rights law.