World News | Pakistan: Speaker of National Assembly approves resignation of 43 members of Imran Khan’s party

Islamabad [Pakistan]Jan 24 (ANI): Pakistan’s National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf has approved the resignation of more than 40 Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf lawmakers in the lower house, Geo News citing sources said.

Ashraf accepted the resignations of another 43 people from PTI on Sunday and sent the summary to the Election Commission of Pakistan for lawmakers to cancel the notice, sources said.

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Ratification means only dissident PTI lawmakers now remain in the National Assembly.

Interestingly, this development comes a day after the party announced that 45 PTI MNAs had withdrawn their resignations and approached the ECP about it.

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According to sources, the resignations of Muhammad Nawaz Allai and Sardar Talib Hassan Nakai were not accepted as they had already submitted leave applications.

Meanwhile, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhary said the main reason for returning to the National Assembly was to remove Raja Riaz as opposition leader, otherwise the legislature “has no importance”, Geo News reported.

“Now, Shehbaz Sharif has lost the support of 172 members and is relying on lotas (traitors) to save his government,” Fawad tweeted.

He added that 40 percent of Congress seats are now vacant due to the Speaker’s actions to save Raja Riaz.

“The country is now close to voting. The only solution to this problem is a general election,” Fawad said.

On Monday, PTI lawmakers asked the ECPs not to be notified if Speaker Ashraf approves their resignation.

PTI lawmakers tendered their resignations after the Imran Khan-led government was ousted via a no-confidence motion in April last year.

PTI claimed that following the resignation of Asad Qaiser, former Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri accepted his resignation due to the speaker’s absence.

National Assembly Speaker Ashraf accepted PTI’s resignation in four stages. According to Geo News, only 11 resignation applications were initially accepted, 34 were accepted on January 17, another 35 were accepted on January 20, and 43 have now been approved. (Arnie)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)