PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Friday his party would be the first to demand an end to governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa if the Centre and PTI agree on a counterterrorism strategy.

Speaking in Larkana, where he also laid the foundation of a 600 bed hospital, Bilawal said the PPP does not accept that terrorism is a pretext for removing the elected provincial government. He said terrorist violence had risen to levels not seen since about 2007 or 2008, and that Afghanistan’s change of government had raised the threat to Pakistan. He argued that Chief Minister Sohail Afridi had failed to counter it, leaving no constitutional or legal ground for the president to reject the summary for emergency.

The Centre imposed emergency and governor’s rule in KP on 11 October, citing the provincial government’s disengagement from the fight against terrorism. Parliament later endorsed the decisions.

Bilawal urged the Centre to talk to PTI and not close the door, and said he had also asked the Centre to engage political, social and provincial stakeholders instead of confronting all of them while Pakistan faces terrorism and tensions with India and Afghanistan. He said the economic fallout of the Iran war was placing an unprecedented burden on households.

On electoral reforms, he called on the opposition leaders in the National Assembly and Senate to name their representatives to the proposed Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms without conditions, saying Imran Khan had given them authority to decide. If PTI stays out, he said, it should not complain publicly about rigging.