Not answerable to the PM,' says Sindh CM, days after spat with federal minister.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Monday that he has been elected to the post by the provincial legislature and is therefore not answerable to anyone except the Sindh Assembly, not even to the prime minister.

He made these remarks while addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Facility and Dow Institute of Life Sciences at the Ojha campus of Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) in Karachi.

"According to the Constitution, I am answerable to the Sindh Provincial Assembly and to no one else, not [even] to the prime minister," said the chief minister, adding that "the Sindh Provincial Assembly elected me and I am answerable to them and I will answer them."

The chief minister was referring to a spat between himself and Federal Minister for Shipping and Maritime Affairs Ali Zaidi in a session of the Karachi Transformation Committee on January 16, details of which were released to the public by Zaidi on Saturday.

The two had a terse exchange during the meeting when CM Shah had allegedly responded to Zaidi's repeated questioning with "I am not answerable to you" thrice. Both of them had penned letters to Prime Minister Imran Khan - seeking his intervention over the exchange - which were subsequently released to the public by Zaidi on Twitter.

The release of CM Shah's confidential letter was criticised by the PPP with Sindh Minister for Education and Labour Saeed Ghani terming it a display of "Zaidi's political immaturity".

During today's ceremony, Shah said that he did not think it appropriate to respond to further questions on the matter because it was a "confidential issue", which was carelessly released to the public. "I cannot be that irresponsible that I talk about a letter which I had written confidentially."

He did respond to further questions of the media over the video of his spat with Zaidi potentially being released, "We will never bring it [to the public], we are a responsible provincial government, we don't do such...