ISLAMABAD: Punjab chief minister, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, whose party is a key ally of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, on Sunday warned the ex-premier against making anti-military comments or critcizing Pakistan’s previous army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who retired last month.

Bajwa, in the months leading up to his retirement on November 29, was the subject of bitter criticism amid a debate about the role of the army chief and the military in Pakistan’s political system. At the centre of the debate was Khan who has accused Bajwa and the military under him of colluding with his political rivals and the US to remove him from office in April in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. All three deny the accusations.

Khan is himself widely accused of having been brought to power in 2018 by the military led by Bajwa before falling out with the army. The military says it no longer intervenes in political affairs and Khan says he fairly won the last general election.

At a press conference this week flanked by Elahi and the chief minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Khan launched a scathing attack on Bajwa, saying he had done to Pakistan what even an “enemy” of the country would not have.

Speaking to a private news channel on Sunday, Elahi said he had advised Khan not to critcize Bajwa but instead he had sat next to him during the press talk and disrespected the former military commander in his presence. He urged Khan's PTI party to "remember Bajwa sb's favours and not be ungrateful."

“If anyone says anything about Bajwa sb now, I'll be the first to speak up and then my whole party will also speak up,” Elahi said. 

“How can they be this ungrateful,” the chief minister said to Khan and his party, saying Bajwa had been their biggest “patron.” 

He said the former army chief “elevated the [PTI] party’s stature from nothing” and supported the government on many international affairs such as negotiating with Pakistan’s Arab allies and the International Monetary Fund.

“They [PTI] have made it a joke. Can a person be so ungrateful? To say whatever they want," Elahi said. 

"Stay within your limits. No one will say [anything more now],” he warned the party. 

Elahi’s Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) was in 2002 carved out of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party by then military ruler General Pervez Musharraf to back his rule. It has always remained close to the military. 

Elahi's latest comments about Khan are being widely seen as cracks within the ex-premier's alliance as he agitates to force the coalition government led by PM Shehbaz Sharif to announce early elections.