By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: With the Leader of the Opposition in the national assembly Raja Riaz the target, the 44 members national assembly from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) who were yet to be de-notified by the national assembly speaker, Raja Pervez Ashraf, have decided to withdraw their resignations.
In the latest of a series of political surprises, the PTI MNAs have sent emails to the speaker to inform him that they were withdrawing their resignations. The decision is part of the PTI’s efforts to throw Raja Riaz out of the chair of the opposition leader before the general elections are announced.
Ex-Deputy Speaker had also accepted resignations
PTI MNAs had submitted their resignations soon after Imran Khan was ousted and were pending with the speaker national assembly despite the fact that ex-Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri had accepted them en-masse months before. The speaker national assembly was expected to accept the resignation of the remaining PTI MNAs in the next few days so as to outnumber the Imran-led party in the House against the 20 PTI turncoats being led by Raja Riaz at present as leader of the opposition in the national assembly.
PTI leader Asad Umar said Monday that 44 remaining PTI MNAs have decided to withdraw their resignations from the national assembly and added that emails have been sent to NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in this regard .
The decision, he said, has been taken on orders of PTI chairman Imran Khan after NA speaker refused to accept all the resignations at once. The next step, he said, will be the nomination of the leader of the opposition, Asad Umar tweeted.
The PTI lawmakers who have decided to withdraw their resignations — according to the PTI — include Muhammad Riaz Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Nafeesa Inayat Khan, Jai Parkash, Malik Anwar, Saleh Mohammad, Tahir Sadiq, Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh, Shaheen Niaz, Nasarullah Dareshar, Niaz Ahmed, Lal Chand Malhi, Sajida Zulfiqar, Raza Nasarullah, Javed Iqbal, Munaza Hasan, Tashfeen Safadar, Sardar Muhammad Khan, Uzma Riaz, Jawad Hussain and Nausheen Hamid.
Meanwhile, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry also said that the lawmakers have decided to withdraw their resignations so that the party could take back the posts of parliamentary party leader and the opposition leader. He added that the objective of the move was to get rid of the “fake” opposition leader in the national assembly and prevent “turncoats” from voting for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the possible vote of confidence.
As many as 123 PTI members had resigned en-masse from the lower house of the parliament following the ouster of Imran Khan in April 2022. Subsequently, NA speaker Ashraf accepted only 11 of the resignations, stating that the rest of the lawmakers would be summoned individually for verification.
After stalling the process for almost eight months, Raja Pervez Ashraf last week, accepted the resignations of 69 more PTI MNAs besides Sheikh Rashid, Awami Muslim League chief after the party hinted it would “test” the incumbent PM with a vote of confidence. The number of PTI lawmakers whose resignations were so far accepted stands at 80.
