Pakistan assembly speaker accepts resignation of 35 more PTI lawmakers

Islamabad: Another 35 lawmakers of ousted prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party lost their membership in Parliament after their resignations were accepted by the Speaker, it emerged on Friday.

They were among at least 123 members who resigned en masse in April last year after PTI Chairman Khan was ousted through a no-trust vote in the National Assembly.

National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted on Tuesday after initially refusing to accept the resignations of 35 lawmakers, including 34 of PTI and one of Sheikh Rashid from the Awami Muslim League -- an ally of PTI.

With another 11 resignations accepted in July last year, a total number of 81 lawmakers have so far lost the membership.

The latest decision has virtually blocked the return of PTI to Parliament and pushed the country closer to early elections.

Apparently, the decision to expedite the acceptance of resignations came as the PTI leader announced over the weekend that his party would test the popularity of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif through a confidence vote.

In a twist of events, PTI leaders who were earlier demanding that the Speaker accept their resignation later condemned his latest action.

Senior PTI leaders Asad Qaiser, Fawad Chaudhry, Asad Umar, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and others, who had gathered in front of Parliament, said Speaker Ashraf went against his commitment that he would individually verify from each lawmaker about his intention to leave their membership.

Former speaker Qaiser said the party lawmakers wanted to meet the Speaker in person to submit and verify their resignations.

“However, we were not provided with the chance. What the Speaker has done is immoral and illegal,” he said.

Meanwhile, the political impasse continues in Pakistan as Khan's party already dissolved the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to press the federal government to call early elections.

So far the government has refused by saying that election for the dissolved assemblies would be held within mandatory 90 days and that of the federal parliament after 60 days of the end of the current term in mid-August.