ISLAMABAD: Speaker of the National Assembly Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has summoned PTI MNAs to verify their resignations individually or in small groups to fulfill a constitutional requirement before accepting/rejecting resignations.
The NA Speaker will begin the process of verification of 131 MNAs of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Awami Muslim League (AML) from June 6.
According to a spokesman for the NA Secretariat, the speaker had decided to meet MNAs to complete the process by June 10 — the day the new coalition government is set to present the budget for the next fiscal year. The speaker has allocated five minutes for each member.
The NA secretariat has sent letters to the lawmakers concerned asking them to appear personally to verify the resignations within the prescribed deadline. The NA Secretariat’s statement comes after PTI leader and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry disclosed that the PTI’s Core Committee had discussed the option of party’s return to the NA.
On the government’s decision to accept the resignations of some PTI lawmakers, Fawad said that if individual resignations are accepted, then the party will go to court.
The coalition parties in the government believe that the three PTI leaders’ resignation should be accepted as they had announced their decision to resign publicly. Among the three lawmakers, Shireen Mazari was the only one who has been elected on a reserved seat for women from Punjab.
Sources further maintained that apart from the three PTI lawmakers, no other Opposition MNA’s resignation has been verified.
PTI lawmakers tender resignations
In April, then deputy speaker of National Assembly Qasim Suri had accepted the resignations of 123 PTI MNAs after they decided to disassociate themselves from the lower house following the ouster of PTI Chairman Imran Khan from the office of the prime minister, before the no-trust move was passed.
Khan was ousted through a no-confidence motion brought against him by the then joint opposition, a move that the PTI called a “foreign conspiracy” hatched by the United States. The allegation, however, has been categorically denied by the superpower.
