CM Gandapur picks 20-member cabinet for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has picked his new cabinet comprising 15 ministers and five advisers.

A summary regarding the appointment of the provincial cabinet — a copy of which is available with Dawn.com — was sent to KP Governor Haji Ghulam Ali today.

The summary was subsequently approved and the appointment of the ministers was notified. Cabinet members are likely to be sworn in later in the evening.

The ministers-designate include Arshad Ayub Khan, Shakeel Ahmad, Fazal Hakim Khan, Muhammad Adnan Qadri, Aqibullah Khan, Muhammad Sajjad, Meena Khan, Fazal Shakoor, Nazir Ahmad Abbasi, Pakhtoon Yar Khan, Aftab Alam Khan Afridi, Khaleequr Rehman, Syed Qasim Ali Shah, Faisal Khan Tarakai and Muhammad Zahir Shah.

Syed Fakhar Jehan, Muzamil Aslam, Muhammad Ali Saif, Mashal Azam and Zahid Chanzeb were selected as advisers to the chief minister.

The development comes a day after CM Gandapur met incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi and discussed the formation of the provincial cabinet with him.

“Mr Gandapur met incarcerated leader Imran Khan and during the meeting, along with other issues, names of the provincial cabinet members were also discussed,” PTI spokesperson Raoof Hasan had told Dawn.

On the other hand, while speaking to the media after he met with Imran, Gandapur had said the PTI would never reconcile with the Shehbaz Sharif-led PML-N government which he claimed was formed by “stealing seats”.

However, he added, a working relationship with the federal government would be maintained.

PTI-backed independents, who have found their new home in the Sunni Ittehad Council, made a landslide victory in KP by clinching over 85 of the 115 general seats in the provincial assembly.

Last week, around 115 MPAs were administered oath in the maiden session of the KP Assembly. It should be mentioned that the previous assembly was dissolved in January 2023 and KP had been functioning in the absence of the provincial legislature for more than 13 months.