Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi has said that the formation of the provincial cabinet would be decided after consultations with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan.
Addressing a press conference in Peshawar on Thursday, the chief minister clarified that the purported list of cabinet members circulating on social media was “fake,” adding that no official announcement had been made by the government regarding the matter.
Afridi said he was keen to meet the PTI founder but had not been granted permission to do so at Adiala Jail.
“It is worth pondering that a chief minister wants to meet his party’s founder but is not being allowed. This is not about one individual — it’s a question of the democratic process,” he remarked.
He added that the KP government had formally written to the federal and Punjab governments to make necessary arrangements for his meeting with Imran Khan at Adiala Jail.
According to official sources, the provincial Home Department has also sent letters to the federal and Punjab home secretaries, requesting security and administrative facilitation for the meeting so that consultation on upcoming political and administrative decisions could take place.
The sources further said that Chief Minister Afridi believed that the formation of the provincial cabinet was a critical phase and no decision would be made without the PTI founder’s guidance.
“We are following PTI’s principles. All decisions will be made in consultation with the party founder,” he said.
The Peshawar High Court on Thursday approved the protective bail of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi.
The petition seeking protective bail was heard by a two-member bench comprising Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Naeem.
During the hearing, Justice Ijaz Anwar observed that FIRs had been registered against the petitioner.
The court, however, ordered that Chief Minister Sohail Afridi should not be arrested, granting him protective bail in the cases.
