KP CM Sohail Afridi Says He's Ready to Leave, as PTI's Own MPAs Move Against Him

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi said on September 28, 2026, that he was ready to leave the Chief Minister's House rather than abandon his principles, as PTI leader Sher Afzal Marwat claimed 35 provincial assembly members were prepared to back a no-confidence motion against him and that Imran Khan himself had signalled Afridi should step down.

What Marwat is claiming

Marwat, a PTI leader and lawyer, said Imran Khan sent a message regarding Afridi's position through lawyer Salman Safdar, conveying that the postponed Islamabad long march might be "beyond Sohail Afridi's capabilities" and that the chief minister should step aside. Marwat said the same message was corroborated separately by Bushra Bibi's family and by Noor Niazi. He put the number of rebelling MPAs at 35 and said their core complaint was that Afridi "was unable to do anything" — criticism Marwat said Khan himself agreed with when it was put to him. Marwat went further, saying that even if PTI does hold its long march on October 4, Afridi's government would not survive it, and that there would be no reprieve from Khan even if the march does not happen at all.

Marwat has also taken the dispute to court, filing a petition against Afridi at the Constitutional Court, which has issued notices in response. None of these claims have been confirmed by Afridi's office or by PTI's central leadership, and Marwat's account rests on messages he says were relayed through intermediaries rather than a direct, on-record statement from Khan, who remains in custody.

Afridi's response

Afridi rejected the pressure publicly, saying he was ready to walk away from the Chief Minister's House rather than leave his ideology behind — language aimed at framing any exit as a matter of principle rather than a forced removal. It is a sharper version of the position he took two days earlier, when he dismissed federal talk of governor's rule as a threat that would trigger an "unprecedented" public reaction if Islamabad tried to move against his government. Afridi has spent the same week demanding the federal government hand over armoured personnel carriers and give KP a seat at the counterterrorism table after the September 26 Dera Ismail Khan bombing, so the chief minister is now fighting a two-front battle: pressure from the federal centre over provincial security policy, and, if Marwat's account holds, pressure from inside his own party over the long march.

Where the governor stands

KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi said he had not received any resignation through the proper channel, adding that he would act on one only if it arrived formally from the Chief Minister's House. Kundi also said he was uncertain about Afridi's actual position, noting the speculation swirling around whether Afridi was on his way out and whether former chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur — who has recently appeared alongside Afridi at public events, including the September 27 hospital visit in Dera Ismail Khan — could return to the post. Kundi's comments leave the province in a holding pattern: no resignation has been filed, no no-confidence motion has formally been tabled in the assembly, and the governor's own earlier openness to governor's rule remains unresolved from the federal side.

Why this matters beyond KP

A change of chief minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be more than an internal PTI reshuffle. The province is at the centre of Pakistan's worsening militant violence along the Afghan border, and Afridi has spent the past week positioning himself as the province's advocate in disputes with Islamabad over security funding and policy input. A leadership change forced by internal PTI politics, rather than resolved through the federal government's own governor's-rule threat, would hand Islamabad an opening to reshape KP's government without having to invoke emergency powers itself — an outcome that would suit federal officials even if they had no direct hand in it.

What to watch next

Three things would confirm whether this dispute is more than a war of claims and counter-claims: a resignation letter actually reaching Governor Kundi through the Chief Minister's House, a no-confidence motion formally tabled in the KP Assembly with signatures from the 35 MPAs Marwat has named, or a ruling from the Constitutional Court on Marwat's petition. None of those had happened as of September 28.

Build Better Pakistan's Politics Desk is tracking Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's leadership standoff and will update this piece if a resignation or no-confidence motion is formally filed.