ISLAMABAD: The PTI on Sunday renewed its efforts to form governments in the Centre, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with the help of a new partner, the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the talks between the PTI-Parliamentarians are stalled, after the PTI leadership demanded the removal of certain leaders, including ex-CMs Pervez Khattak and Mahmood Khan from the party.

However, during a press conference on Sunday, PTI leaders vowed to form governments, with its prime minister slot candidate Omar Ayub saying that 30 million votes were polled for PTI-backed candidates even without its electoral symbol of ‘bat’.

Barrister Gohar Khan claimed that PTI had won “180 seats in the National Assembly, 115 seats in Punjab, 16 in Sindh, 42 in KP, and four in Balochistan”. “In Balochistan, we got one seat, three are due. In Sindh, we did not get even a single seat. In Punjab, we are due about 50 seats,” he added.

To boost its numbers in parliament, the PTI after talks in Islamabad decided in principle to become partners with the Sunni Ittehad Council in the National and Punjab assemblies to claim seats reserved for women and minorities.

Before the SIC, the PTI had allied with the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen in Punjab and the Centre and an announcement to this effect was also made by the PTI spokesperson at a press conference last week. This decision seemingly irked the Jamaat-i-Islami, with which PTI had decided to enter a similar alliance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The JI had responded it was not interested in a ‘limited alliance’ with the PTI in KP.

On Sunday, the deal with the MWM seemingly fell through due to apparent criticism from the KP-based leaders of the PTI, who had opposed the idea on “sectarian grounds”, said a PTI insider.

However, this was not confirmed by the PTI on record. PTI spokesperson Raoof Hassan said the MWM and the PTI were old allies as well as partners in Gilgit-Baltistan and this partnership would continue.

As SIC leader Hafiz Hamid Raza arrived in Islamabad at the MWM secretariat to hold talks with the PTI on the power-sharing formula, the meeting was also attended by the MWM leaders. There was no official statement after the meeting.

In light of decisions made at the meeting, the PTI ‘independents’ for the Punjab Assembly as well as the National Assembly were told to prepare two stamp papers each expressing their intention to join the SIC. These affidavits will be submitted to the ECP following the official declaration from the party.

As speculations on the break-up with the MWM continue, a PTI leader told Dawn that the MWM had not submitted a list of reserved candidates to the ECP before the elections, which could create problems for the merger. The MWM nominee had submitted nomination papers as an independent candidate.

“Later, the MWM acknowledged him and PTI also supported him… but MWM has not nominated even a single person for the reserved seats due to which Election Commission of Pakistan may say that the number of candidates for reserved seats can be increased only under one condition: when the party has already submitted a list of candidates for the reserved seat. In other words, a list can be updated but a new list cannot be submitted,” the source said.

They claimed that the decision to align with the SIC was taken to avoid any “adverse decisions” by the Election Commission of Pakistan.