PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Sunday defended his move to skip the swearing-in ceremony of provincial Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, calling the event “waste of time”.
Gandapur, who did not attend the oath taking ceremony of his province’s governor, said the federal government based on “Form 47” results and its “illegally” notified governor held no importance for him.
“Earlier too, I did not attend swearing-in ceremony of those who got elected on the basis of the Form 47,” he said talking to Geo News.
Since the February 8 general elections, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been claiming that it won the polls on Form 45 with a majority and alleged the other leading parties rigged election results.
The KP CM spoke about Form 47 in response to a question about his absence from the governor oath taking ceremony.
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) senior leader Faisal Karim Kundi, who took an oath on Saturday as the 36th governor of KP replacing his predecessor Haji Ghulam Ali who was appointed on the said post back in 2022, said the provincial cabinet and chief minister were invited to attend the swearing-in ceremony.
“Probably, the CM did not attend the event because of his busy schedule,” Kundi said.
Kundi’s appointment is part of the power sharing agreement reached between the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to form a coalition government after neither these two parties, nor their rival Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), managed to secure a simple majority in the February 8 polls.
As per the PPP-PML-N agreement, the former managed to secure key constitutional and executive posts including the presidency, senate chairmanship, KP and Punjab governorships, Balochistan chief ministership and National Assembly’s deputy speakership.
In return, the PPP ensured the PML-N of its support for the latter’s government in the Centre and Punjab along with the positions of PM, Punjab chief minister, NA speaker along with Sindh and Balochistan governors.
