PTI notes improvement after Gen Munir’s appointment: Fawad

ISLAMABAD: Expressing confidence in Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry noted that 50 percent improvement has been observed in affairs after the arrival of the new army chief.

Fawad, in an interview with a private channel, said going forward, the party expects the army chief to improve things further.

In response to a question on the PTI’s plan to test Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif through a vote of confidence, the former information minister confirmed that the premier will have to take a vote of confidence from the National Assembly.

“We would soon request President [Dr Arif Alvi] to ask [PM] Shehbaz to take a vote of confidence,” he said hours after the National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted 35 more resignations of PTI lawmakers.

The PDM, which had been reluctant till recently to accept the PTI resignations and wanted the members of leading opposition party to return to the National Assembly, took a U-turn recently after PTI Chairman Imran Khan announced his strategy to oust the PM Shehbaz government.

After securing Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi’s vote of confidence and following the dissolution of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies, the PTI unfolded its next political strategy to remove the coalition government by seeking a vote of confidence through President Alvi.

Berating the PDM’s strategy of accepting the resignations of PTI MNAs, Fawad reiterated his party’s demand for the date of a general election saying now that the NA speaker has accepted 81 resignations, the coalition government should announce the date for snap polls.

It should be noted that after the acceptance of 81 resignations of MNAs, including 80 of PTI and one of its ally Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, and their denotification by the Election Commission of Pakistan, the fate of the remaining 46 PTI MNAs lies in the hands of NA speaker.

The PTI leader also blamed the incumbent Pakistan Democratic Movement-led government for the current political and economic crisis. “We are heading towards a Sri Lanka-like situation,” he claimed.