Speaker of the National Assembly Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Tuesday accepted the resignations of 34 PTI MNAs, followed by their immediate de-notification by the Election Commission of Pakistan.
According to the notification issued by the top electoral authority, the lawmakers stand de-notified “with immediate effect.”
Those de-notified by the ECP include Murad Saeed, Asad Qaiser, Pervaiz Khattak, Sheharyar Afridi, Asad Umar, Fawad Ahmed, Hammad Azhar, Shafqat Mahmood, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Zartaj Gul, Alamgir Khan, Syed Ali Haider Zaidi, and Qasim Khan Suri, and others.
The matter hit a deadlock last month as the lawmakers insisted on the acceptance of resignations en masse.
Speaker Ashraf had made it clear at the time that the decision in this regard will be made as per the provisions of the Constitution and law.
Two days after the ouster of former prime minister Imran Khan on April 11 through a vote of no confidence, all PTI MNAs —123 in total— submitted their resignations. On April 15, Qasim Suri, who became acting National Assembly Speaker after Asad Qaiser resigned, accepted their resignations.
However, since the coalition government came into power and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf became the new Speaker of the National Assembly, it was decided that the resignations would be verified through individual interviews, as the resignations were printed and not handwritten, as the NA states.
Therefore, on July 27, 2022, Ashraf accepted the resignations of 11 PTI MNAs.
A day earlier, Imran Khan said that his party planned to make a return to the National Assembly. He had also expressed optimism about the elections being held in April this year.
On Jan 14, he also said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will be “tested” via vote of confidence, a move similar to the one he faced as the country’s premier.
