Unpacking 5 major controversies of Gandapur’s tenure as KP CM
According to a report by Dawn… Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Wednesday announced that he would step down from his office and the PTI confirmed that party founder Imran Khan had given the direction to do so along with nominating Sohail Afridi for the provincial top slot.
PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar said Gandapur would send his resignation to the governor on Thursday. Gandapur assumed the office of chief minister after he was administered his oath by then-KP governor Haji Ghulam Ali on March 3, 2024.
His tenure as chief minister was not without controversy, either involving the federal government or criticism from within his own party.
In fact, it has been a tight-rope walk for the chief minister, from his first day in office, to balancing politics with realpolitik. He had to do business with the federal government, as KP is heavily dependent on its resources and the real power brokers.
Government officials said that in the initial few months, Gandapur struggled to balance between focusing on governance and the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the province, and demands from the hawkish group within the party to launch protest caravans against Islamabad, at times giving marching orders without even bothering to check with him.
Dawn.com unpacks five major controversies from his 19-month tenure:
Corruption allegations
Allegations of corruption and financial irregularity have plagued the Gandapur administration since its first year.
Imran had sent a stern message from his prison cell to members of the KP government in August 2024 that they would be held accountable for corruption and governance issues in their departments.
Shakeel Ahmad Khan, the former minister for communication and works, was subsequently removed from his position.
In September 2024, KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi alleged that Gandapur was involved in massive corruption in the province.
In May 2025, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said a preliminary probe revealed that officials of the communication and works department, Upper Kohistan, in connivance with officials of district accounts office of Upper Kohistan and a branch of National Bank of Pakistan, had misappropriated more than Rs30 billion from different projects through bogus withdrawal of funds from the national treasury in the name of several contractors, who didn’t carry out any civil work.
The bureau claimed that the district accounts office of Upper Kohistan, without carrying out any verification of the alleged work done by the said contractors, passed the cheques amounting to billions of rupees, which were deposited by those contractors in their bank accounts.
Direct communication with Afghanistan
Another area of Gandapur’s policy that often landed him in direct confrontation with the federal government was his pursuit of a direct line of communication with the interim Afghan Taliban government as per Imran’s instructions.
In September 2024, Gandapur said he had requested the ‘authorities’ for permission to hold talks with the Afghan government for peace in the province on Imran’s instructions, warning that he would proceed on his own if the request was not considered.
The response was swift as the federal government and its allies lambasted Gandapur for his comments about unilaterally leading peace talks with Afghanistan, accusing him of exceeding his authority. The Foreign Office also jumped into the fray and unequivocally stated that conducting diplomatic negotiations with foreign governments was the sole domain of the federal government.
The issue resurfaced in January when Gandapur announced plans to send a delegation to Afghanistan for dialogue on bilateral issues. The provincial government also said it would engage cross-border tribesmen to curb militancy and ensure regional peace.
That led to Minister for States and Frontier Regions, Kashmir Affairs, and Gilgit-Baltistan Amir Muqam stating that negotiations with Afghanistan fell outside the provincial government’s jurisdiction.
Backing down from his earlier assertiveness, Gandapur said in March that he was waiting for the federal government’s approval regarding the terms of reference for a jirga to negotiate with the Afghan government and last month, he disclosed that his passport had been blocked since May 9, 2023, so he couldn’t travel to Afghanistan for holding peace talks.
The disclosure came after Imran directed Gandapur to visit Afghanistan and hold discussions with authorities regarding “mutual issues and peace and security to prevent the situation from deteriorating further”.
Role in PTI protests
Gandapur has also been the frequent victim of criticism by PTI supporters, particularly on social media, regarding his contribution and role in advocating for Imran’s release. The most challenges Gandapur faced emanated from within his own party.
The PTI staged a protest in Islamabad in October last year that saw clashes between its supporters and the police. Gandapur also reached the federal capital and went to KP House.
Confusion subsequently emerged as the party initially claimed but then retracted the claim that he was arrested from KP House. His decision to leave party workers in Islamabad and move to KP House had surprised many and also elicited criticism from the PTI’s political committee.
In a surprising turn of events, he resurfaced and entered the KP Assembly chamber on Oct 6 after the PTI demanded he be produced within 24 hours. Reacting to Gandapur’s sudden reappearance, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar had said that he had “staged a drama” through his disappearance.
In a repeat occurrence during the party’s November 2024 protest, government ministers had alleged that Gandapur had again fled the party’s protest and abandoned its supporters.
There was something amiss, according to those in attendance. Gandapur, who was originally to lead the caravan to D-Chowk — was trailing far behind. The events that unfolded on November 26 not only deeply polarised the party that still rallies around its incarcerated chief, but also triggered and intensified a tug of war and jockeying for power between different groups within the PTI.
Former first lady Bushra Bibi had heaped scorn on Gandapur for abandoning her at D-Chowk — enough of a cue for the party’s social media warriors to start trolling the chief minister.
Those who are closely associated with Gandapur had blamed some party figures from Punjab for poisoning the party founder against him.
The acrimony was witnessed at a core committee meeting, where, according to some who sat through the proceedings, the two sides exchanged barbs after KP objected to being left alone to do the heavy-lifting while the Punjab chapter was nowhere to be seen when push came to shove.
But that acrimony, some party insiders had said, was just part of a larger issue — Gandapur’s inability to make any significant headway in their quest for some kind of relief for his jailed leader and his spouse.
The chief minister’s suggestions to convince power brokers to relocate the former prime minister and his wife and place them either under house arrest at their home in Banigala, or at a host of locations in KP, such as the Governor’s House, Nathiagali or the CM House in Peshawar, did not really cut any ice with those who actually wield power in the country.
His own party’s social media warriors, who once adored and called him ‘Khan sahib’s tiger’, then began trolling him. The difficult balancing act that he was trying to perform seemed to be becoming too heavy a burden for his shoulders to bear. For perhaps the first time in his political career, ever since his entry into power corridors, Gandapur seemed to be under pressure.
In a similar turn of events in July 2025, Gandapur seemed to throw a wrench in the works of a nationwide protest, announced by Imran, which was expected to climax on August 5, marking two years of the former PM’s imprisonment.
At a press conference where party leaders were expected to announce the plan for this protest, Gandapur caused confusion when he came up with a new 90-day timeline for what he called ‘a final push’. Flanked by PTI leaders who had arrived in Lahore to launch their movement for the release of Imran and his spouse, Gandapur had said that the 90-day countdown had already begun.
However, the mixed messages had left party workers questioning whether this meant a postponement of the Aug 5 protest plan, or something else altogether.
The resulting discord in the party leadership and ranks had prompted Imran to prohibit his party members from publicly discussing the party’s internal matters. He himself had decried the lack of any “meaningful momentum” for the party’s planned Aug 5 protest and ordered its members to immediately shun all their differences.
The result was a muted turnout on Aug 5 that saw the party alleging that its plans were thwarted by the state’s crackdown.
Feud with Aleema Khanum
The latest controversy to embroil Gandapur came when a split between him and Imran’s sister Aleema Khanum came to the fore.
He met Imran on September 29 for over two hours, discussing differences in the party, with Imran ordering strict action against “those creating issues within the party”.
The very next day, Gandapur accused Aleema of creating a divide within the party and alleged that she was being facilitated by the Military Intelligence (MI) and “establishment”.
He confirmed there was a rift in the party and Aleema, with the help of some vloggers, was trying to provoke the party workers against him and to discredit the party leaders. He said he told the party founder that the factions were working for their vested interests and that had hurt the campaign for his release.
For six months, Gandapur weathered a storm. Not from a weak opposition but from his own party, backed by an unbridled overseas social media brigade, clamouring for his head.
He was called a ‘traitor’, ‘compromised’ and ‘establishment tout’. The noise reached such a fever pitch that some within his own cabinet began to wonder loudly about the prospects of replacing him.
Many in officialdom were left puzzled and wondering whether the mustachioed, long-locked strongman was indeed on his way out. “I never felt so weak,” Gandapur narrated to his jailed party leader.
For months, he said, he was trolled for refusing the chairman’s orders not to present and pass the provincial budget, hold direct negotiations with the Afghan Taliban to put an end to militancy in the volatile province and, more crucially, refuse support for military operations and drone attacks in the tribal districts.
Political action against PTI wishes
The sardar from Kulachi, Dera Ismail Khan, hardly had smooth sailing as KP’s eighteenth chief minister. For the first eight months, he was required to launch one protest march after another as the party attempted to pressure the powerful military establishment to eke out concessions for his leaders.
Governance, at the time, was placed firmly on the back burner. Furthermore, the times he took political action that seemingly went against Imran and the PTI’s wishes, such as supporting military operations to legislative actvity, further incensed the party’s supporters.
His political challenges became compounded after the D-Chowk fiasco last November, and were further exacerbated by subsequent events, beginning with the abortive attempt to pass the mines and minerals bill, which the party’s social media activists claimed was being sponsored by the military establishment.
The chief minister had to relent, however, when his incarcerated leader conveyed his own opposition to the bill.
Then came the budget. Orders from Adiala said the incarcerated leader should be consulted before it is presented to the house. Efforts were made to share the draft proposals and seek his nod, but things didn’t work out.
Then came another order, ‘Don’t pass the budget’.
Barrister Saif, self-acclaimed ‘Pindi boy’ and adviser to the chief minister, was dispatched to brief the leader that passing the budget was a constitutional requirement, and failure to do so would technically knock out the government. This time, Imran relented.
The unforgiving internet activists, however, trolled Gandapur again when the worsening security situation warranted a military response. The problem was further compounded by incidents involving drone attacks that resulted in civilian casualties.
The political storm was gathering, and the chief minister’s fate seemed to have been sealed when Imran’s frustration with him seemed to boil over, triggered by his “failure to stop” military operations in the province. complete report is on below link. Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1947478/unpacking-5-major-controversies-of-gandapurs-tenure-as-kp-cm