Election Commission de-notifies 34 PTI parliamentarians as well as AML Chief Sheikh Rashid
ISLAMABAD
National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Tuesday accepted 35 resignations tendered by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) National Assembly members (MNAs). The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) subsequently de-notified the MNAs over the acceptance of the resignations.
The PTI MNAs include Pervaiz Khattak, Hammad Azhar, Fawad Chaudhry, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Qaisar, Murad Saeed, Shafqat Mehmood, Sheharyar Afridi, Zartaj Gul, Alamgir Khan, Noor ul Haq Qadri, Sadaqat Ali Abbasi, Ali Nawaz Awan, Ali Amin Khan, and others. Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rasheed s resignation has also been accepted.
General elections have become talk of the town since the dissolution of the Punjab Assembly as after the dissolution, the PTI announced testing PM Shehbaz Sharif s nerves in the NA through a vote of confidence in the NA. In a surprise move, the PTI vowed to sit in the NA again on the conditions that Leader of the Opposition, Parliamentray leader, and Public Accounts Committee chairman in the NA should be from the PTI.
Earlier, the PTI and the ruling coalition in the NA had been at daggers drawn to each other over the Speaker s delay in acceptance of resignations by the PTI MNAs. It is pertinent to mention here that the PTI had announced mass resignations from the lower house of parliament on April 11, a day after the ouster of then prime minister Imran Khan through a vote of no-confidence.
The party wanted Mr Ashraf to accept the resignations collectively, however, the speaker insisted that he would accept these one by one after the personal appearance of each member in line with constitutional requirement.
On July 28, the speaker accepted the resignations of only 11 PTI lawmakers. The PTI challenged the move in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in August but court dismissed the petition saying the political dispute should be resolved in the Parliament.
