WEB DESK
The National Assembly (NA) Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Tuesday approved the resignations of another 43 lawmakers of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
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The development comes a day after, 45 PTI MNAs requested to withdraw their resignations, out of which 43 members’ resignations were accepted today.
NA Secretariat on Tuesday stated that the members were called several times for verification of their resignations.
The secretariat has now sent the accepted resignations to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to de-seat the MNAs.
Once the members are de-notified, none of the resigned PTI MNAs will remain part of the NA.
Earlier, 70 resignations had been accepted by NA speaker in two phases and the tally adds another 43 now.
A total of 131 MNAs had submitted resignations minutes before the election of Shehbaz Sharif as the prime minister in April last year.
Subsequently, NA Speaker Ashraf accepted only 11 of the resignations, stating that the remaining lawmakers would be summoned individually for verification.
After stalling the process for eight months, Ashraf accepted the resignations of 34 PTI lawmakers on January 17 and 35 on January 20, including Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid.
The legislature only comprises 211 lawmakers including 20 dissidents of PTI. Four PTI members including Imran Khan did not take oath after winning by-election while four are on ‘long leaves’ without resigning.
The move came after the threats from the PTI to return to parliament only to foil a vote of confidence, which the party hoped President Dr Arif Alvi would seek from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
