Imran Khan's Party Accused of Neglecting Pakistani Region Bordering Afghanistan

For months, Pakistani PM Imran Khan's government has been battling criticism from all quarters. While thousands of students protested in October on the issue of rising educational costs, the opposition has been on the offensive over the state of the nation's economy. But Khan appears to have found a new enemy in the form of his own party now.

Peshawar Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Noor Alam Khan is the latest member of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to slam his own government and Prime Minister Imran Khan for neglecting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), an impoverished northwestern region of the country bordering Afghanistan.

Noor Alam even demanded that the names of PM Khan and his cabinet colleagues be put on the dreaded Exit Control List (ECL) to prevent them from leaving the country.

"Members who occupy the first three rows are the main culprits of the chaos in the country, so put their names on [the] ECL and Pakistan will survive", Noor Alam said while gesturing towards the treasury benches in the South Asian nation's National Assembly on Friday.

"It seems that Peshawar is not a district of this country", Noor Alam said while referring to a ban on new gas connections in KP, especially in the province's capital Peshawar.

Noor Alam's comments aren't the first signs of a brewing rebellion in the ruling party's ranks as his remarks came a day after Defence Minister Pervez Khattak questioned his own government on the same subject.

According to several reports in the Pakistani media, Khattak had even warned PM Khan that he would not hesitate to vote against him if problems continued to persist in KP.

With contrasting voices growing within the top leadership of Pakistan's ruling party, the opposition has predicted that PTI will disintegrate ahead of the 2023 national elections.

"The process of collapse within PTI has started", Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal told local media.