ISLAMABAD: Estranged associates of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday announced setting up a new political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians, creating a fresh challenge for the embattled ex-premier months before the next general election.

The announcement of the new party to be headed by former defense minister Pervez Khattak — which came weeks after the launch of a party by sugar baron Jahangir Khan Tareen, who was for over a decade Khan’s closest confidant but fell out with him in 2020 — will add fuel to the fire of widespread speculation that king’s parties are being primed as a viable alternatives to Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is arguably the most popular political party in the country.

In Pakistan, the king’s party is a common euphemism for one favored by the all-powerful military.

Since being ousted from the PM’s office in a no-trust vote in April last year, Khan has launched an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the military, which independent analysts say helped him rise and fall from power.

His tensions with the military reached a crescendo when Khan was arrested in a land fraud case on May 9, prompting violent nationwide protests in which rioters attacked an air base, military properties, including the army’s headquarters, and burnt a top general’s home. The military has since said it will punish the enactors and masterminds of the violence, including by trying them in military courts. The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has threatened to ban Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and dozens of his close associates and party members have announced quitting his party while hundreds of his supporters are under arrest.

“A new party has been created in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” an official statement from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians read. “The party’s name is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians while former Defense Minister Pervez Khattak has been appointed as its head.”

The statement said former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Mahmood Khan and “dozens” of PTI members had left their party to join the new one, and over 57 parliamentarians that were part of the previous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly under Khan’s rule had joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians.

“The process of more joinings is underway,” the party said.

The statement said the new party was created as a result of “differences and protests” within the PTI after the violent protests of May 9.

“All political representatives of the new party hold former prime minister Imran Khan responsible for the tragedy of May 9,” it said. “Imran Khan’s anti-state agenda has been rejected not only by the masses but also by his own party’s leadership.”

The announcement of the new party by Khattak comes after Khan’s party suspended his basic membership last week for failing to respond to a show-cause notice that accused him of inciting party leaders to leave the PTI.