With the by-elections to the National Assembly in the country around the corner, as many as ten de-seated legislators of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) created a newer controversy in the country’s checkered political history, and all the more for the party voters, when they approached the Islamabad High Court, taking the plea that it was a political move and that the court rescind the approval accorded to their resignations by the National Assembly Speaker and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
Key legislators of PTI, including Dr Shireen Mazari, Ali Mohammad Khan, Farrukh Habib, Shandana Gulzar, Fazal Mohammad Khan, Shaukat Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Ijaz Shah, Jameel Ahmad Khan and Mohammad Akram, may have termed their resignations a political move, but analysts view as it a ploy intended to destabilize the incoming government after the party was ousted from power corridors through a no confidence vote.
The country’s election watchdog has set October 16 as date for voting in the by-elections in nine NA constituencies, including four constituencies and a reserved seat for women falling in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On all the nine seats, PTI chairman Imran Khan is contesting.
However, the party’s MNAs in the court claimed, resignations of PTI’s MNAs from their seats in the National Assembly, was a political move built around an alleged foreign conspiracy after its party chief Imran Khan was removed from power as the prime minister. The party did stick to its stance and cashed in on the narrative of the foreign conspiracy and mobilized its voters and sympathizers agitate the foreign hand in the country’s internal affairs.
Imran Khan, who is vehemently running the campaign for by-elections in KP, is facing severe criticism from his political opponents and contenders of the by-polls that he is trying to run away from the contest.
Thus newspaper on Wednesday reported that ANP provincial president Aimal Wali Khan heaped criticism on the PTI chairman that the party’s de-seated legislators’ petition in the Islamabad High Court shows that PTI is running away from the election due to fear of defeat. ANP’s statement came after the PTI’s MNAs approached the IHC to overthrow the NA speaker’s and ECP’s approval to resignations as members of the National Assembly.
Political observers have termed PTI lawmakers stance at the Islamabad court a novel shift in its approach to the ongoing political crisis. Pakistan’s Supreme Court has also advised PTI’s leaders and MNAs to rejoin the parliament and settle all their political issues inside the parliament instead of filing petitions in the courts.
The petition by the PTI’s de-seated legislators has ushered in a new political discourse that the PTI may have accepted the harsh reality of the country’s politics or that now its leaders may be making attempts to get back to the parliament to have their say in decision-making policies to steer the country out of the multiple crises. The hour is drawing nearer to shed light on the nation’s future.
