PTI MNAs to visit National Assembly for verification of resignations on Wednesday: Farrukh Habib

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Farrukh Habib said on Sunday that the party lawmakers would go to the National Assembly on Wednesday for the acceptance of their resignations, Aaj News reported.

The PTI lawmakers had submitted mass resignations in April this year, a day after party chief Imran Khan’s ouster as the prime minister through a no-confidence vote and shortly before Shehbaz Sharif was elected as his successor.

Then-NA deputy speaker Qasim Suri subsequently accepted the resignations of 123 PTI MNAs. However, incumbent Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf later decided to verify the resignations and accepted the resignations of just 11 lawmakers on July 27, with the PTI taking an exception to the acceptance of a select few resignations.

Earlier, Pervaiz Ashraf said he would not approve any resignations unless he was satisfied that they were “voluntary and genuine”. On Thursday, he invited the party’s lawmakers to appear before for the verification of their resignations.

But, PTI Senator Shibli Faraz announced the same day that the party would be approaching the Supreme Court and not the speaker for the acceptance of the mass resignations.

However, Habib, while addressing the media in Faisalabad said that “we are going to the National Assembly on Wednesday to get our resignations accepted”.

He maintained that all PTI lawmakers had submitted their resignations in writing.

“But they accepted just 11 resignations on the basis of mala fide [intentions],” he went on to say, adding, “Now accept our resignations. Why are they being evasive?”

The PTI leader also remarked that this matter was also a “test for the Election Commission of Pakistan”.

Similar announcements of PTI lawmakers intending to go to the NA and approaching Ashraf were made by Imran and party leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi earlier this month as well.

Meanwhile, a decision on a plea by the PTI for setting aside the Islamabad High Court’s verdict declaring the acceptance of PTI lawmakers’ resignations by Suri unconstitutional remains pending in the Supreme Court.