ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf Wednesday barred Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s nine Members National Assembly from Karachi from attending the NA session.
The nine PTI MNAs from Karachi led by Aftab Siddiqui, the president PTI Karachi chapter, were stopped at the main gate of the National Assembly Secretariat on the orders of the NA speaker.
A spokesman of the NA Secretariat categorically said that “the PTI lawmakers who had tendered their resignations cannot attend the session, as the NA speaker has taken the decision after consulting legal experts”.
PTI’s Karachi MNAs decide to attend NA session
“The Sindh High Court (SHC) has just suspended the notification of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) with regard to the resignations of PTI lawmakers and it has not given any directive about the NA speaker’s decision of accepting the [PTI] members’ resignations”, said the spokesman.
He continued that the lawmakers belonging to the PTI who had tendered their resignations are no more members of the house, adding “a member who has resigned will not be allowed to enter the house”.
“As per NA rules, no stranger can enter the house,” he declared.
When the nine PTI lawmakers from Karachi reached at the main gate of the NA Secretariat, a heavy contingent of Islamabad Police barred them from entering the NA premises, saying their entry is not allowed by the speaker. The lawmakers kept trying to enter the house but failed due to the deployment of a large number of police personnel at the gate, leaving them with no option but to stage a sit-in on Constitution Avenue.
In a scathing attack on the NA speaker, they said that he should act as a custodian of the house instead of Asif Ali Zardari’s and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s “henchman”.
Aftab Siddiqui, the PTI’s Karachi chapter president, said that he had already written a letter to the NA speaker, intimating to him that the nine PTI MNAs from Karachi would attend the lower house session scheduled on April 26 (today).
He said that the PTI lawmakers have the right to attend the assembly session after the suspension of the Speaker’s order as the Speaker’s notification was not required after the SHC’s ruling.
The PTI succeeded in gaining temporary relief from the SHC in March as the court suspended an ECP notification of accepting the resignations of nine MNAs of the party.
The SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali Shaikh headed a two-member bench that heard the pleas of the PTI lawmakers against acceptance of their resignations.
The party MNAs had tendered en masse resignations protesting the ouster of former premier Imran Khan by a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly in April last year.
The PTI’s members from Karachi later approached the high court against the NA speaker’s accepting their resignations and holding of by-elections on the vacant seats.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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