Pakistan NA speaker accept 123 of Imran party lawmakers resignations

Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan' party PTI leader Farrukh Habib on Thursday said the resignations of 123 legislators of his party had been accepted by acting speaker of the National Assembly, Qasim Suri.

A notification has also been issued in this regard, the ex-minister said in a tweet, reports DAWN

Habib, a former state minister in the recently dissolved government of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, said general elections had now become inevitable in the country after the acceptance of resignations submitted by the PTI lawmakers.

In all, the PTI has 155 members in the 272-member House, of them, 20 are dissidents who have been served notices by the party. The decision of the remaining 12 lawmakers remains unclear.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Khan has written a letter to the ECP, saying that no member of the PTI should be nominated to any committee as the party lawmakers had already tendered their resignations from the lower house of the parliament on April 11.

"In the wake of foreign intervention into internal affairs of Pakistan and the events and circumstances related thereto, PTI decided not to be the part of the ultra-constitutional exercise of regime change and formation of an imported government," he wrote in the letter.

Imran pointed out that there was no representative of the PTI in the National Assembly, while defectors had already been proceeded against under Article 63-A of the Constitution

"I hereby withdraw all names given in the list to this commission in priority on women as well as minority seats. I, therefore, declare that PTI will not be a party to any proceedings, steps or action taken on its behalf on any forum and will outrightly reject any/all efforts to use the Name of PTI."

The PPP and the PML-N had on Wednesday accu­sed Suri of pressuring the NA Secretariat into sending resignations of the PTI MNAs to the election commission without meeting constitutional obligations.

The two parties — now in government — claimed that Suri had committed a violation of the Constitution by approving the resignations without listening to them in person.

Ayaz Sadiq had pointed out that the PTI was repeating the 2014 episode when its MNAs had resigned but were not ready to appear before him (the then NA speaker) for confirmation of their resignations.