The verification of PTI resignations runs into problems once more.
Fawad accused the speaker of the National Assembly of “running away” rather than accepting resignations.
ISLAMABAD: The PTI was scheduled to meet with National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Monday to request that its en masse resignations be accepted, but the meeting was postponed owing to the speaker’s “unavailability” on Tuesday.
The NA spokesperson stated in a statement that the PTI has changed its mind and will instead send a team made up of top leaders rather than a group of its 127 MNAs to discuss the issue with the speaker of the NA once he returns to Islamabad.
On December 28 (today), the party was supposed to go to the National Assembly to confirm the resignations of MNAs. Before proceeding to the NA, the MPs were due to congregate in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad.
Additionally, Imran Khan, the leader of the PTI, had previously announced a video connection address to the legislators.
“NA Speaker escaping”
In response to the development, PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry claimed that anytime the party’s lawmakers seek to confirm their resignations, the NA speaker “runs away.”
The PTI leader claimed, when speaking to journalists about the situation in Lahore, that former PTI chief whip Malik Aamir Dogar had phoned Ashraf but that he was “nowhere to be found.”
He was informed that the speaker had left for Larkana, according to Fawad. According to the information we have, he will travel to Australia following that.
He added that if the resignations were rejected, the PTI would have to file a case with the Supreme Court.
The NA speaker should “accept the resignations and schedule countrywide elections,” Fawad said, adding that “tendering resignations is our constitutional right.”
However, PTI’s former top whip Malik Aamir Dogar called Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the speaker of the National Assembly, to let him know that a team from the party wanted to speak with him about the resignations of party legislators.
While verifying Dogar’s telephone conversation with the speaker, the NA spokesman stated that the latter had “welcomed this gesture of the PTI leader reaching him.”
According to a statement from the PTI secretariat, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Parvez Khattak, and other MPs have requested to meet with the NA speaker.
The NA speaker was cited as noting that there was always opportunity for discourse and debate among lawmakers.
According to the statement, “The Speaker also underlined that there is a defined protocol in the Pakistani Constitution and the National Assembly’s rules of business governing the confirmation of MNAs’ resignations, and this procedure will be followed in letter and spirit.”
He did, however, clarify that individual meetings would still be required to verify their resignation.
Both sides agreed that the team, which would include senior PTI leadership, would visit the speaker of the National Assembly immediately after his arrival from Garhi Khuda Baksh.
The meeting will likely take place after the NA speaker returns to Islamabad after attending the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s 15th death anniversary in Garhi Khuda Baksh.
It is important to note that the NA Secretariat had informed the speaker that he would once more call the PTI’s MNAs into his chamber one by one after the party opted to have the resignations of its lawmakers personally confirmed.
According to “Paragraph (b) of Sub-Rule (2) of Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in NA, 2007,” PTI legislators would be summoned for a verification of their resignations.
According to the official statement, the NA secretariat also responded to a letter addressed on December 15 by PTI Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
The speaker informed the party that in order to determine whether the party’s 127 MNAs, including chairman Imran Khan, had tendered their resignations voluntarily and without coercion, he was required to personally meet with each one of them in order to comply with Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007.
Following Imran Khan, the leader of the PTI, being removed as prime minister by a vote of confidence in parliament, PTI legislators collectively tendered their resignations on April 11.
In its letter, the National Assembly Secretariat said that it had called the MNAs on May 30 and given them until June 10 to personally affirm their resignations. But it stated that “none of them came.”
In July, the speaker had accepted the resignations of just 11 PTI MNAs without providing a reason.
