PTI chairman Gohar warns against dividing provinces without broad public consensus | The Express Tribune

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan on Monday warned that any attempt to divide Sindh and other provinces without the consent of the people would weaken the federation, urging political forces to avoid taking decisions on the creation of new provinces in haste.

Speaking to reporters outside the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Islamabad, Gohar warned against bringing in controversial legislation, adding, “If you divide Sindh without the consent of its people and its representatives, you will weaken the federation.”

While contending that the issue of creating further administrative units should be deeply deliberated upon and consensus should be built, Gohar underscored that if the government indulged in carving out provinces from Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) without the consent of its residents and representatives, “they will walk from one trouble into another”.

“Such experiments should not be carried out in the country,” he said, adding that the issue of new provinces should be debated within a commission and then taken up by the new parliament that comes to power.

The PTI chairman called for a consultative process similar to the one followed during the passage of the 18th Amendment.

He warned that rushing into the division sans consensus would undermine the unity of the federation.

‘Maryam should apologise’

Barrister Gohar also criticised Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz over her recent remarks concerning terrorism and demanded an apology. Two days earlier, CM Maryam had claimed that Punjab faced a greater security threat from “neighbouring provinces than from neighbouring countries”, stressing that terrorism plagued the province through its borders.

“I condemn the statement of Punjab CM on terrorism,” Barrister Gohar said, adding that authorities had traced terrorism back to India.

Read: Marriyum defends Punjab CM’s terrorism remarks

“India and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) were found guilty of terrorism in Pakistan,” the PTI leader asserted. He lamented that Maryam’s statement was prejudiced and did not reflect facts, and if anyone besides her had said it, a first information report would have been filed to hold that person accountable.

Speaking to the media, the PTI leader also asked CM Maryam to do away with point-scoring on a serious issue like terrorism.

“Terrorism is an issue on which the national political leadership should adopt a serious approach,” he cautioned.

Speaking on negotiations between the government and PTI, Gohar said previous efforts had largely “remained at the level of mere offers”, and now meaningful progress was required. He warned against unilateral decision-making and said if issues were handled without consultation, “a flood of people will come out [against it]”.

The PTI chairman also thanked the people of Sindh for warmly receiving the K-P chief minister during his visit to Karachi.

According to Gohar, the reception demonstrated that the people were unwilling to accept the status quo.

Meanwhile, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, in a post on X, said his party would not engage in dialogue regarding the formation of new administrative units. 

“We will not participate in the operations of the administrative unit until Imran Khan’s opinion arrives,” he stated.

Division or devolution of power?

“The system we are living under has collapsed.”

With these words, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi reopened one of Pakistan’s most politically sensitive debates: whether the country’s governance structure has become too centralised, too unwieldy and too distant from the people it is supposed to serve. Speaking at the Pakistan Economic Summit in Islamabad towards the end of July, Naqvi argued that Pakistan’s existing administrative model had failed to deliver basic services, timely justice and meaningful economic opportunities, and called for a serious discussion on creating new administrative units or provinces.

Naqvi’s argument is not simply about drawing new lines on a map. At its core is the question of whether a country of Pakistan’s size and population can continue to be governed through a structure in which political, administrative and financial power remains concentrated in a handful of provincial capitals. He contended that decentralisation could bring decision-making closer to citizens, improve service delivery and create space for new leadership.

Two days ago, Naqvi proposed to take the debate over new provinces or administrative units directly to the public. He said that the government had failed to deliver basic amenities to the public, including education, potable water, healthcare and other services. Therefore, he asked the stakeholders to decide on the issue while remaining within the constitutional framework.

The Sindh Assembly, however, rejected the proposal to divide the province and reaffirmed its opposition to any such alteration in Sindh’s territorial limits. The resolution passed by it argued that any restructuring of the federation must respect constitutional procedures, democratic consent and the will of the people of the province.

Also Read: ‘Sindh is one, shall remain one’: Assembly passes resolution against division of province

The resistance illustrates why the provinces question is considerably more complicated than an administrative exercise.

MQM’s Mustafa Kamal, who leads the health ministry at the centre, has avidly shown his interest in carving out provinces from Sindh. Before Naqvi’s speech, Kamal had floated the idea of Sindh’s division, which was met with strong opposition. He remains one of the greatest flag-bearers of the movement.

Yet creating new provinces would itself require a demanding constitutional process. Legal experts cited by The Express Tribune have pointed out that a public vote alone cannot create a new province. Any change affecting provincial boundaries must comply with the constitutional amendment procedure, including the required approval of the relevant provincial assembly. A referendum could potentially provide democratic legitimacy, but it would not replace the constitutional mechanism. 

The debate, therefore, is ultimately about more than the number of provinces Pakistan should have. It is about how power should be distributed between the federation, provinces and local governments — and whether citizens should have greater control over the institutions responsible for delivering services to them.