Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Asad Umar said on Monday that 44 party lawmakers have decided to withdraw their resignations from the National Assembly.

In a tweet, he said emails in this regard have been sent to NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.

The decision to withdraw resignations was taken on orders of former prime minister and party chairman Imran Khan after the speaker refused to accept all the resignations together, Umar said.

“The next step will be the nomination of the opposition leader,” the PTI leader added.

In a tweet, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said that the aim of the move was to get rid of the “fake” NA opposition leader and prevent “turncoats” from voting for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the vote of confidence.

The names of those who have decided to withdraw their resignations as per Umar are as follows: Muhammad Riaz Khan, Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh, Shaheen Niaz, Nasarullah Dareshar, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Nafeesa Inayat Khan, Malik Anwar, Saleh Mohammad, Jai Parkash, Tahir Sadiq, Niaz Ahmed, Raza Nasarullah, Javed Iqbal, Munaza Hasan, Lal Chand Malhi, Sajida Zulfiqar, Sardar Muhammad Khan, Uzma Riaz, Tashfeen Safadar, Jawad Hussain and Nausheen Hamid.

Last week, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had accepted the resignation of 35 PTI MNAs.

As many as 123 PTI MNAs resigned en masse on April 11, 2022, after former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted through a no-confidence motion.

Since then, the resignation of a total of 80 MNAs has been accepted. In addition to the most recent 35, 11 were accepted in July last year and 34 resignations were accepted last week on Thursday.

These members were de-notified by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) immediately after the speaker accepted them.