On Friday, Pakistan’s National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf accepted the resignations of 35 members of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. This is in accordance with a long-standing demand of the party’s Members of the National Assembly (MNA), many of whom submitted their resignations in April 2022.
However, the timing of the approval has sparked a controversy.
According to a report in Pakistan Daily dawnThe resignation was taken by Ashraf in an attempt to foil an alleged PTI plan to move a no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister. shehbaz sharif, However, Ashraf denied this. “When I don’t accept the resignation, there is an uproar and when I do, there is hue and cry.” dawn quoted him as saying.
long wait
11 minutes ago on April 11, 2022 Sharif was chosen to replace Khan as prime minister.131 PTI MPs resign en masse at Parliament House in Islamabad. The resignations were a coordinated form of protest against the “imported government”, in reference to Khan’s allegations that his ouster was prompted by foreign interference.
However, Speaker Ashraf refused to accept all the resignations. In fact, as recently as December, he remained adamant that resignations would be accepted only after verifying them personally and to ensure that the decision was made voluntarily and without any outside pressure. went. This clashed with the demand to accept the resignations of the MPs in one go.
The Speaker accepted only 11 resignations out of 131 on 28 July. according to a report in dawnthe MNAs whose resignations were accepted were Abdul Shakoor Shad, Ali Muhammad Khan, Fazal Muhammad Khan, Shaukat Ali, Fakhar Zaman Khan, Farrukh Habib, Ijaz Ahmed Shah, Jamil Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Akram Cheema, Shandana Gulzar Khan and Dr. Shireen Mehrunnisa Mazar.
Months passed without any resolution to the demands of the Speaker and PTI MPs until January 17, when the resignations of 34 PTI MNAs were accepted.
These MPs have been identified as Aftab Hussain Saddique, Aftab Jahangir, Ali Amin Khan, Ali Nawaz Awan, Alia Hamza Malik, Asad Kaiser, Asad Umar, Ataullah, Faheem Khan, Fawad Ahmed, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Hammad Azhar, Imran Khattak, Kanwal Shajab. done as. , Malik Muhammad Amir Dogar, Mansoor Hayat Khan, Muhammad Alamgir Khan, Muhammad Aslam Khan, Muhammad Najeeb Haroon, Murad Sayeed, Nurul Haq Qadri, Umar Ayub Khan, Parvez Khattak, Qasim Khan Suri, Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz, Sadaqat Ali Khan, Saifur Rehman, Sanaullah Khan Mastikhel, Shafqat Mehmood, Shah Mehmood QureshiSheharyar Afridi, Sheikh Rashid Shafique, Syed Ali Haider Zaidi and Zartaj Gul, as per a report in dawn,
The resignation of Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid was also accepted on the same day.
Three days later, on 20 January, the Speaker accepted the resignations of 35 more PTI MNAs, who were identified by a report dawn as: Aamer Mehmood Kiyani, Abdul Majeed Khan, Ali Khan Jadoon, Amjad Ali Khan, Andalib Abbas, Arbab Ameer Ayub, Asma Qadir, Aurangzeb Khan Khinkhi, Chaudhary Shaukat Ali Bhab, Faizullah, Gul Dad Khan, Dr. Haider Ali Khan, Ibrahim Khan , Junaid Akbar, Khurram Shahzad, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhbar, Malika Ali Bukhari, Malik Karamat Ali Khokhar, Mehboob Shah, Mohd. Iqbal Khan, Mohd. Bashir Khan, Mujahid Ali, Munwara Bibi Baloch, Sahibzada Sibghatullah, Sajid Khan, Salim Rehman, Shahid Ahmed, Sher Akbar Khan, Sher Ali Arbab, Syed Faiz ul Hasan, Syed Fakhar Imam, Tahir Iqbal, Umar Aslam Khan, Ingr Usman Khan Tarakai and Zahoor Hussain Qureshi.
National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf accepted the resignations of 35 more PTI members as per the rules and regulations. pic.twitter.com/QokSWmn9hk
– National Assembly of 🇵🇰 (@NAofPakistan) January 20, 2023
With the latest round of approvals, the Speaker has approved the resignations of 80 PTI MPs who have now been de-notified by the Election Commission. The resignations of 51 more PTI MLAs are yet to be accepted. The process has significantly reduced the PTI’s strength in the assembly and may prompt the government to hold elections across the country to remain in power.
Why was the speaker criticized?
A comment was made after the Speaker’s decision to accept most resignation letters in a short time Imran KhanWho said in a news show that PTI may force PM Sharif to face a no-confidence motion in Parliament.
Khan said that PTI can take the test of the current Prime Minister by using tit-for-tat tricks. “Shehbaz Sharif tested us in Punjab and now it is his turn to prove whether he has a majority in the National Assembly or not,” he said. press trust of india, Khan said, “First, Shehbaz will be tested for the trust vote…and later we have other plans for him.”
The PTI MNA has said that the speaker’s decision was a result of political pressure. Former speaker Asad Kaiser, who belongs to PTI, said this dawn Decision taken to benefit the ruling party “When you hold a constitutional post, you should take decisions keeping in mind the law and the constitution. you have to act according to the law [rather] Instead of fulfilling the wishes of political people,” he said.
However, Speaker Ashraf said that the resignations were accepted after a meeting with the PTI delegation led by Qaiser in December 2022. “We have gone through his media statements, his tweets and his signatures before taking a decision about his resignation.” Told dawn,