LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi has urged National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf to accept the resignations of their legislators immediately.
While addressing a press conference here on Thursday, the former Foreign Minister disclosed that on the instruction of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, he was writing a letter to the Speaker seeking time for verification of 123 resignations of the PTI lawmakers. He accused the Speaker of opting for ‘unconstitutional measures’ by only accepting selective resignations of the PTI MNAs; “123 of our lawmakers resigned en masse, but their resignations were accepted selectively”. This is against the constitution, he added.
“Despite that, people gave the mandate to Khan during the by-election as PTI defeated the multi-party ruling alliance after winning most of the seats. They used our resignations to fulfil their political aims, but we still won 75 percent of the by-elections,” he said.
The vice-chairman said he was also writing to the speaker for deciding a date for accepting PTI’s resignations. “He can either accept our resignations all at once or he can call us individually for the verification,” he added.
To a question, he said the government was not serious to hold talks on elections; “it has clearly stated that it will not hold early elections”. “They were delaying the elections to complete their agenda of closing their corruption cases; some have been closed and the rest were in the pipeline. They also fear that they will lose the elections,” he added.
He averred that President Arif Alvi with honest intention tried to bridge the gap between the government and the PTI, “but in my opinion, the response from the government disappointed him”.
On this occasion, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry dispelled the impression that the PTI lawmakers, who resigned from the National Assembly seats, were receiving salaries and perks; “the government misquoted the Supreme Court’s remarks that the PTI legislators were not joining the Assembly proceedings, but still receiving salaries and perks”.
He had doubts that the government benches might be enjoying the PTI lawmakers’ salaries and perks; “you never know government foreign trips might be funded by our money”.
He averred that they have already resigned from the National Assembly; “but unfortunately some institutions, especially the Election Commission of Pakistan, acted as a subsidiary organisation of the PML-N and only accepted resignations of certain lawmakers”. “We are only demanding acceptance of all our resignations and subsequently elections are held on the vacant seats,” he added.
He urged the Supreme Court, which was hearing a case on the matter, to order the National Assembly Speaker to complete the process of resignations.
He maintained that the assemblies would be dissolved at any cost and PTI Chairman Imran Khan will announce its date on December 17. “The date can be 17 or 23, only Khan will finalise the date and subsequently, elections will be held in 70 percent of the country,” he added.
“We have made efforts and still making efforts to hold elections within the national framework. The recent government figures reflect the dismal state of the economy in the country. Only snap polls can pull the country out of the current economic crisis. We have all exhausted avenues and approached all the institutions to convince the government to hold early elections and hence we have decided to dissolve the assemblies,” he said.
To a question, he said that as per Article 122 of the Constitution the Governor cannot delay the dissolution of the assemblies for more than 48 hours after receiving a summary from the chief minister. “We also have the number in the Punjab Assembly to win the vote of confidence and overcome the no-confidence move,” he added.
Meanwhile, in the letter Qureshi, who is the deputy parliamentary leader for his party in the National Assembly, once again asked the Speaker to accept the remaining resignations of PTI MNAs without any further ‘delay or excuse’. “Although there is no need for any further action from PTI’s side, especially given the consistent public position taken by the party leadership and the individual members of parliament in respect of these resignation letters,” Qureshi said, adding, that PTI legislators can agree on a time with him for the next week when they could all come to the National Assembly and re-confirm the resignations which they had tendered on April 11.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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