PTI resignations: Plan to approach NA speaker likely to hit a snag

ISLAMABAD: The PTI leadership’s plan to send its members of National Assembly to the lower house on Wednesday for approaching the speaker to accept their resignations seems to be ineffective as the custodian of the house won’t be in the capital on the day.

Highly-placed sources of the NA Speaker Secretariat told The News on Sunday that the parliamentary leader of PTI Shah Mahmood Qureshi has been informed in writing that his party’s MNAs would have to get appointments individually from the speaker for verifying their resignations. The members would be intimated about the schedule to come for verification of their resignations just like the previous occasion when they were given six days in June to turn up but none showed up. The speaker won’t accept any resignation unless he is convinced that the member has tendered his resignation willingly.

The sources reminded that since the National Assembly wasn’t in session and the auditorium of the house would be locked, no member would be permitted to enter the premises.

NA Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf would be engaged in Garhi Khuda Bux Larkana with regard to the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto and then he will head to Canberra, the Australian capital, to address a conference to be held next week.

Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf told this scribe the other day that no resignation would be accepted through coercive methods and the law doesn’t provide collective acceptance of resignation. “It would be contrary to rules and regulations and relevant law if resignations are granted acceptance in the manner, PTI leadership is asking for,” he maintained.

Meanwhile, the PTI members are mulling to proceed to the Parliament House from the KP House in procession but the security of federal capital wouldn’t endorse the move due to the worsening law and order situation.

The Parliament House is situated in the sensitive Red Zone, where no such activity would be permitted under Article 144 of the CrPC. Security of the city has already been placed under high alert. There are apprehensions that the PTI would show defiance to all such instructions keeping the past behaviour of its leadership in view. Ultimately, it will have to reschedule the plan by taking another U-turn.