The National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Sunday urged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders to return to parliament and said that he would not accept any resignations unless he was “satisfied”. It is pertinent to note that PTI leader Qasim Suri, in his capacity as the acting speaker on April 13 had accepted the resignations of 123 PTI MNAs, who had accepted their party chairman Imran Khan’s appeal after his removal from the office of the prime minister through a no-confidence motion earlier in April. However, on April 17, the newly elected NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had directed the assembly secretariat to deal with the resignations of the PTI lawmakers afresh and present them before him so that they could be treated as per law. The ruling of the 22nd speaker of the assembly had come amid claims and speculations that some of the former ruling party lawmakers had been willing to retract and have been conveying messages that their resignations should not be accepted. Later on, in June, the ruling coalition had formulated a strategy on the matter of en masse resignation of PTI lawmakers from the National Assembly and agreed to proceed with phase-wise acceptance. Speaking to journalists in Lahore, the speaker said that “there are rules and a due process in place for accepting resignations. The friends that had resigned and then on different occasions, be it television, media, newspapers stated that they had resigned, I accepted their resignations”. “The law dictates of me that even if a member comes to me and says that they have reigned but I have information that they are being pressured and are being forced to give the statement under duress, then I would not accept their resignation,” he said.
“However, the situation is completely different here,” he continued, “they continue to remain in the [parliamentary] lodges […] they continue to take the perks of the secretariat and then they send messages saying ‘Mr Speaker, please do not accept my resignation’ then under such circumstances I have to consider a great deal”.
“I will not deseat anyone unless I am satisfied,” he added, “in fact now I hope for them to come and sit in the parliament.”
