PESHAWAR - After a break of about four months, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly will meet on October 23, and being part of the agenda, it may take up a no-trust motion against Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the session.
The five opposition parties including PPP, PML-N, JUI-F, ANP and QWP have filed a joint no-confidence motion against the chief minister on August 19 to stop a possible dissolution of the assembly by the ruling PTI in the province.
Though, the opposition parties backed the motion, still they seem undecided as how to make it successful in the next session, while the treasury benches are evolving a strategy to frustrate the motion at all. In this regard, the opposition parties say they will not withdraw the no-confidence motion. They added that any decision about the fate of the motion will be made by opposition parties jointly.
They said they moved the no-confidence resolution to save the system and not the government. Had the Assembly been dissolved, it would have created a political crisis in the country.
When PTI launched the sit-in movement against the PML-N government in the centre, there were widespread speculations that PTI chairman Imran Khan could use the dissolution of the provincial assembly as a trump card to force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif into announcing mid-term elections in the country.
The sources said that there has been a division among opposition parties over the no-confidence motion. Moreover, treasury benches, comprising PTI and JI, are making a strategy to frustrate the motion. In this regard, Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Asad Qaiser met JI Ameer Sirajul Haq the other day at Al-Markazi Islami and discussed motion in detail.
It has been learnt that the government may form a jirga that would convince the oppostion parties to take the motion back. At the moment, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, the JUI-F has 17 seats, PML-N 17, QWP 10, and ANP and PPP five each, while PTI, Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad are part of the ruling coalition.
The opposition parties require 63 votes for the success of the no-trust motion against the chief minister, who had given an open challenge to them to remove him. There is still the possibility that opposition may withdraw the motion if all parties agreed to it.