ISLAMABAD: In a bid to bar the incumbent opposition leader in the National Assembly Raja Riaz from becoming part of negotiations on the appointment of a caretaker prime minister – in case of general elections – 44 PTI lawmakers on Monday collectively '‘withdrew’' their resignations from National Assembly on orders of party chairman Imran Khan.
The 44 MNAs – whose resignations are yet to be accepted – who wanted to meet the NA Speaker to withdraw their resignations were not allowed to meet him, forcing them to stage a protest outside parliament followed by a sit-in in front of the Speaker’s residence inside the heavily guarded Minister’s enclave.
However, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secretary general Asad Umar took to Twitter and announced that the PTI MNAs have sent emails to Speaker, making it clear that they are going to withdraw their resignations.
Speaker accepts resignations of 35 more PTI MNAs
The decision, he added, was taken after the speaker refused to accept all the resignations together, adding the next step would be the nomination of the opposition leader in NA, as well as, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman. The lawmakers who have decided to withdraw their resignations include Muhammad Riaz Khan, Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh, Shaheen Niaz, Nasarullah Dareshar, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Nafeesa Inayat Khan, Malik Anwar, Saleh Mohammad, Jai Parkash, Tahir Sadiq, Niaz Ahmed, Raza Nasarullah, Javed Iqbal, Munaza Hasan, Lal Chand Malhi, Sajida Zulfiqar, Sardar Muhammad Khan, Uzma Riaz, Tashfeen Safadar, Jawad Hussain, and Nausheen Hamid, etc.
Meanwhile, Fawad Chaudhry, senior vice president of the party, said the MPs had decided to withdraw their resignations to get rid of Raja Riaz, who he called a “fake” opposition leader, and prevent the group of “turncoats” from voting for Shehbaz Sharif in the vote of confidence.
More than 120 MPs loyal to former Prime Minister Imran Khan resigned en masse on April 11, two days after he was ousted following a contentious vote of no-confidence marred by un-probed allegations of military intervention.
Former deputy speaker of the National Assembly Qasim Suri — who was performing as acting NA Speaker after Asad Qaiser’s resignation — accepted the resignation letters by PTI MNAs in April last year. However, once Ashraf was elected as the speaker, he decided to verify the resignations by interviewing lawmakers individually, but instead decided in favour of stalling the entire process by blaming it on the lawmakers’ reluctance to step down. Ashraf had claimed that “such situations require a lot of thought process, and I will not accept the resignation letters until I’m completely satisfied they are not resigning under pressure”.
However, last week, after the PTI chief hinted at “testing” the prime minister through a confidence vote in a tit-for-tat move similar to the one he himself had faced, Ashraf accepted 35 resignations from PTI lawmakers and sent the list to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for de-notification.
After a hiatus of two days, he also accepted the resignations of 35 more MNAs, taking the total number PTI MPs’ to 81.
After Umar’s announcement, PTI lawmakers staged a sit-in outside the NA speaker’s house, demanding that their requests should be immediately accepted.
Later in the day, PTI lawmakers also held a meeting with the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikander Sultan in Islamabad.
Talking to reporters outside the ECP, PTI leader Amir Dogar said the party had provided the commission with a list carrying the names of 45 MNAs who had withdrawn their resignations.
“Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja personally received our application and we requested him that the ECP must play its constitutional role here,” he told the media.
Flanked by Riaz Fatyana and other leaders, Dogar said the PTI delegation told the commissioner to treat the party’s decision justly and in the light of the Constitution.
He said the list of members withdrawing their resignations had also been sent to NA Speaker, while the same had also been uploaded to the NA website for the record.
He said the PTI wanted to get a “genuine opposition leader appointed in the lower house who could take the election process forward”.
Dogar insisted that the government had lost its credibility while urging the ECP to take a decision that was in the public interest.
To a question, the PTI leader said no party lawmaker had received a penny from the government since April 10 — the day when PTI legislators resigned en masse.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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