PTI approaches NA speaker for verifying resignations

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Tuesday once again approached National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to verify their resignations, the lower house’s secretariat said.

In a statement, the NA Secretariat said the development came when PTI’s former chief whip in the NA Amir Dogar telephoned the speaker and informed him that a delegation of his party wanted to set a meeting.

PTI leaders, including Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Parvez Khattak, and other lawmakers, have asked to set a meeting with the NA speaker, the secretariat said in a statement.

The speaker, according to the statement, has welcomed them to meet them, saying dialogues are the only solution in a parliamentary democracy.

However, he added that verification of their resignation would still be subject to one-by-one meetings.

Sources told Geo News that the speaker is in Garhi Khuda Baksh to attend a ceremony related to the 15th death anniversary of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the meeting is expected to be held after the NA speaker returns to Islamabad.

PTI MNAs visit speaker's office

However, PTI MNAs decided to go to the speaker's office to verify their resignations despite his unavailability.

PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry said the NA speaker "runs away" whenever the party's lawmakers want to verify their resignations.

PTI MNAs, under Imran Khan, will gather at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad tomorrow. The PTI chief is set to address the lawmakers via a video link.

PTI had announced to reach out to NA Speaker Raja Parvez Ashraf and verify their resignations on December 22; however, they postponed the move after Governor Punjab's de-notification of Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi.

'One-by-one'

On Thursday, after the PTI decided to have its parliamentarians' resignations verified in person, the NA Secretariat notified that the speaker would again summon the party's MNAs into his chamber one-by-one.

PTI's members of the National Assembly will be called in for verification of their resignations in pursuance of "Paragraph (b) of Sub-Rule (2) of Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in NA, 2007".

According to an official statement, the NA secretariat also responded to PTI Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi's letter, which he wrote on December 15.