Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has defended the imposition of governor's rule and emergency measures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saying the decision was taken under unavoidable circumstances and that delaying action could have caused further damage to the province. Addressing the PML-N parliamentary party from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Islamabad, he said the government had tried to resolve the situation through negotiations before acting.

Shehbaz said committees representing the PML-N and PPP held talks for 48 hours, and that a draft agreed in those talks was never approved, leaving the federal government with what he called no other option. He also criticised the PTI's 13-year rule in the province, questioning how many universities, hospitals and schools had been built, and whether funds provided to the province had been used transparently for public welfare. He put the national toll of terrorism at around 80,000 lives and economic losses of about Rs15,000 billion.

Security at the centre of the argument

The prime minister linked the intervention to security, saying militants had been brought back from Afghanistan and resettled in Pakistan in 2019 and 2020, and that the renewed wave of terrorism had caused significant damage. Governor's rule and emergency were imposed in KP on 11 October, citing the provincial government's deliberate disengagement from counterterrorism efforts. The opposition has challenged the legal basis of the move, and parliament and the courts remain the forums where that challenge will be tested.