ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly in its last session of the parliamentary year, commencing on Wednesday (July 27) will take up the question of accepting the resignations of Vice Chairman of the PTI Shah Mahmood Qureshi, former federal ministers Pervez Khattak, Asad Umar, Shafqat Mahmood, Ms Shireen Mazari, Ms Zartaj Gul, Fawad Chaudhry and Engineer Ali Muhammad Khan who loudly announced their resignation from the NA floor during the proceedings of the house on April 9.
The session is being commenced to complete its mandatory 130 working days as six day’s session is short in the mandatory period. The house will have to complete it before August 13, the last day of the Parliamentary year. Well-placed Parliamentary sources told The News that leader of opposition in NA Raja Riaz Ahmad will agitate the question formally this time since he had raised it through point of order thrice but the speaker didn’t entertain it without responding it. Raja Riaz’s contention is that the members in question have submitted their resignation in black and white to the speaker secretariat and before leaving the house on the day, they through their voice pronounced to resign from the NA.
In the circumstances, the speaker should check the audio/video record of the proceedings of the day for verifying it and accept the same. He should consign the resignation for vacation of the respective seats of the member to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for holding of by-elections so that the constituents of the constituencies should be represented in the august house. In an interesting recent development, former president and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari has urged National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf not to accept the resignations which were submitted by the PTI collectively on April 9 under protest against the no-trust move against their prime minister Imran Khan. Since then, the Speaker hasn’t move forward on these resignations including of Imran Khan.
The sources said that the NA will have eventful week-long session and it has been hinted that the session would carry significance since the PTI is mulling to return to the National Assembly for the remaining period of its tenure for playing some role in it. In the meanwhile, President Arif Alvi will address the joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament before the first session of the NA. The sitting will be held on August 22. It is mandatory as per constitution.
The address of the president would be provided by the government and it is expected that the president wouldn’t deviate from the text of speech that would be provided to him for delivering. The first session of the last parliamentary year of the National Assembly will be held in early September, the sources added.