Photo courtesy National Assembly of Pakistan
National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Thursday reiterated that he will not accept the resignations of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s lawmakers en masse and needs to meet them individually for verification.
Addressing media after a meeting with a PTI delegation at Parliament House in which they demanded that the resignations be accepted collectively, he stressed that resignations could only be accepted in accordance with the Constitution and the rules of the National Assembly. This, he said, required them to meet him individually and also submit handwritten resignations rather than the printed “form letter” they had provided in April.
He also recalled that some of the “resigned” lawmakers had contacted him in private and told him their signatures had been faked, while others had said they did not wish to resign and were being pressured by their party. Maintaining that he could not identify them, he maintained that this situation required him to exercise caution before accepting collective resignations.
Reiterating a demand already voiced by several government lawmakers, including most recently Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Ashraf said he had urged the PTI delegation to return to Parliament and evolve solutions to all their problems through dialogue and consensus. He said the members of the delegation had told him they would bring his suggestions to the PTI leadership and respond in accordance to their instructions.
The PTI delegation that met with the speaker comprised former speaker Asad Qaiser, former deputy speaker Qasim Suri, party chief whip Aamir Dogar, former minister of state Dr. Shabbir Qureshi, Faheem Khan, Attaullah, Amjad Khan Niazi, Tahir Iqbal, Zahid Akram Durrani, and several. PTI leaders Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Pervez Khattak did not attend the meeting, as they had reportedly been summoned to Lahore by Imran Khan for a separate meeting.
Speaking with media after their meeting, the PTI members claimed they had submitted all their demands to the speaker in writing and were consistent in their demand for collective acceptance of their resignations to pave the way for early general elections. Qaiser said they had informed the speaker of their concerns, adding they had also raised a question over why 11 MNAs’ resignations were accepted without a handwritten resignation letter or individual verification and had not received any satisfactory response. However, Ashraf claimed these MNAs had separately confirmed their resignations on social media or by adding handwritten notes.
Qaiser alleged that the only reason the speaker was not accepting resignations was because the government is “running away from elections.”