Punjab Information Minister Azma Bukhari has advised Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandpur to worry about his province rather than the federal government after the Supreme Court’s decision on the reserved seats case.
“They [PTI] should not give a lecture to us,” she said in a statement while reacting to the KP Information Muhammad Ali Saif’s comments.
Earlier in the day, Saif said that KP CM Gandapur’s actions would be a nail in the “Form 47” government. He claimed that the federal ministers could not sustain the apex court’s judgement.
On July 13, a full-court SC bench set aside orders of the Peshawar High Court and Election Commission of Pakistan taking away reserved seats from the Sunni Ittehad Council. The court ruled that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf should be considered a political party and given reserved seats.
“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was and is a political party which secured and won… general seats in the national and provincial assemblies in the general elections of 2024,” said the majority decision read by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah.
Saif claimed that the federal and provincial ministers in Punjab were committing contempt of court by anti-court statements. He said that after the court rulings, the “incompetent government has become delirious and the fake representatives of the incompetent government are spewing venom against the judiciary in scheduled press conferences.”
He alleged that the government had earlier played politics on important national security matters like the Operation Azm-i-Istehkam. “This group can go to any extent to save their power, and the purpose of the scheduled press conferences is to occupy the TV screen, with the aim of creating a narrative against the judiciary and suppressing the opposition’s opinion,” Saif said.
As PML-N’s Bukhari slammed Saif’s comments, she criticised the PTI-led government over the state gifts case and sent a judicial reference against the CJP Faez Isa when the PTI was in power.
She advised him to bring out receipts for purchasing the state gifts from the Toshakhana repository.
