“Country is close to elections now. The only solution to this problem is general polls,” said Fawad.
NA speaker ‘approves’ resignations of 43 more PTI MNAs. National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf has approved the resignations of further 43 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s lawmakers in the lower house.
Officials of the speaker’s office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Ashraf had approved the resignations a few days ago and has sent a summary to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The approval means that only dissident PTI lawmakers remain in the National Assembly now.
Interestingly, the approval of the resignations comes a day after 45 PTI MNAs had tried meeting the speaker to withdraw their resignations.
Reacting to the development, senior PTI leader Fawad Chauhdry said the main reason to return to the assembly in small numbers was to remove Raja Riaz as the opposition leader because the legislature had “no importance”.
More From FactFile: Another U-turn: PTI decides to take back resignations of remaining MNAs
“Right now, Shehbaz Sharif has lost the support of 172 members and is relying on lotas (turncoats) to save his government,” tweeted Fawad.
As a result of the speaker’s actions to save Raja Riaz, 40% of seats are now vacant, he added.
“Country is close to elections now. The only solution to this problem is general polls,” said Fawad.
PTI requests ECP not to denotify MNAs
On Monday, PTI lawmakers had requested the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that they should not be denotified if Speaker Ashraf approves their resignations.
The PTI made the request after it informed the electoral body that their MNAs are withdrawing their resignations and the NA speaker has been informed about it.
The MNAs submitted the plea in a meeting with the members of the electoral body after their protest outside the ECP’s building. They had moved to the ECP after the authorities restricted them from entering Parliament.
The resignations
The PTI lawmakers had tendered their resignations en masse after the Imran Khan-led government was ousted via a no-confidence motion in April of last year.
The PTI had claimed resignations were accepted by former deputy speaker Qasim Suri in absence of the speaker after Asad Qaiser’s resignation.
Speaker Ashraf had stalled the process of accepting resignations stating the remaining lawmakers would be summoned individually for verification.
However, contrary to his claims he quickened the process once PTI, earlier this month, announced its return to the assembly and test the PM through a no-trust move.
So far, the resignations of 124 PTI MNAs have been accepted and 81 members have been denotified.
The PTI resignations were accepted by NA Speaker Ashraf in four stages. Initially, only 11 resignations were accepted, while 34 resignations were accepted in second and 35 in third stage and now 43 have been approved.
