Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi said Friday that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s August 5 rally would be a “decisive semi-final” at which the party would present its future course of action to the nation.
Addressing a parliamentary session, Afridi said responsibilities had been assigned to all parliamentary members to prepare for the rally.
He said the venue had been shifted to an open ground near the Peshawar Motorway to facilitate the public and accommodate a larger number of participants.
The chief minister said PTI had pursued all constitutional and legal avenues since October 15, 2025, and had made repeated efforts to resolve political issues through dialogue and mutual understanding.
He said the party’s central leadership had also favoured negotiations, but its opponents had failed to respond positively.
Afridi said the Islamabad High Court and the Supreme Court had been approached to secure a meeting with incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan. He added that he had also attempted to meet the chief justices of both courts and had raised the matter before the chief justice at a public event.
“As chief minister, it is my constitutional and legal right to meet the leader of my party,” Afridi said.
He maintained that the provincial government was responsible for making decisions in accordance with Imran Khan’s political vision.
“None of us has an individual political status. The people voted in the name of Imran Khan,” he said, adding that rejecting the mandate given to the PTI founder amounted to disrespecting the province’s 45 million people.
Afridi accused the federal government of treating Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s elected administration like “second-class citizens”.
He demanded that Imran Khan’s family members, sisters and personal doctors be allowed to meet him and that he be provided with the best possible medical treatment.
The chief minister described Imran Khan as a national asset and the country’s most popular political leader.
Referring to the May 9 violence, Afridi said PTI had been accused of attacking military installations, but an impartial investigation would establish the facts and distinguish truth from falsehood.
He said Imran Khan’s position had always been that “the army is mine and the country is also mine”.
Afridi claimed that PTI had defeated its political opponents on every narrative, but its grievances remained unresolved.
He said peaceful protest was now the party’s last constitutional option, adding that the Constitution guaranteed every citizen the right to demonstrate peacefully.
