PTI suspends Lyari MNA’s membership for approaching court against resignation

KARACHI: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday suspended the party membership of its MNA Abdul Shakoor Shad for approaching the judiciary against the acceptance of his resignation from the National Assembly. The party also issued a show cause notice to the MNA to explain his position within seven days.

On Friday, the Islamabad High Court suspended the ECP notification on the confirmation of the resignation of Shad from NA-246 District South, a National Assembly constituency covering the Lyari and Garden areas.

Shad was among those PTI MNAs that had submitted their resignations to the party en masse when the PTI government was toppled through a no-confidence move. After the victory of the PTI in the Punjab by-elections, the ruling coalition in the federal government decided to have some of the resignations of those PTI MNAs accepted. Shad was one of them.

Eventually, the NA speaker accepted his and others’ resignations, after which the Election Commission of Pakistan announced by-elections in nine constituencies. In order to counter the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s strategy, the PTI announced that its chairman Imran Khan would himself contest the by-elections in all the nine constituencies, including NA-246.

Read more: IHC disposes of PTI’s plea against ‘piecemeal’ acceptance of its MNAs’ resignations

Shad also submitted his nomination papers along with Khan as a covering candidate of the PTI for NA-246. But in a strange turn of events, he approached the Islamabad High Court requesting that the approval of his resignation be nullified because he had not submitted his resignation to the speaker.

“The party has taken notice of your recent actions and is issuing you a show cause notice. You submitted a handwritten resignation letter and even posted it on your personal Twitter account mentioning as an ex-member of the National Assembly,” read the show-cause notice issued by the PTI.

“It is further stated that you [Shad] filed your nomination papers at the ECP and appeared for scrutiny as a covering candidate for the party chairman for the by-election announced for NA-246. Despite strict party instructions to not withdraw your candidature, you withdrew your papers after acceptance of the party chairman’s papers.

Read more: IHC reserves verdict on PTI’s plea against MPs’ resignations

“After stating countless times that you have resigned, both verbally and in writing, you suddenly went against the party policy and filed a case in the Islamabad High Court stating that you never resigned as an MNA. In addition, you have also gone in the media and spoken against the party on various occasions.”

Some PTI leaders alleged that Shad had been estranged from the party because some party tickets for UCs were not given to candidates favoured by him. Sindh Assembly PTI member and provincial information secretary of the party Arsalan Taj told The News that Shad wanted his favourites to be awarded tickets in two to three UCs of District South, but, as the PTI decided against his him and awarded tickets to senior members of the party active on ground, the Lyari MNA became disgruntled and stopped participating in the party meetings and activities.

He added that Shad had taken contradictory steps as, on the one hand, he submitted his nomination papers as the covering candidate and, on the other hand, he approached the court against approval of his resignation. Why he submitted nomination papers as a covering candidate for the party chairman if he believed that the acceptance of his resignation was wrong in the first place, Taj asked.

The News made several attempts to contact Shad but he was not available. However, some people belonging to his close circle said he was disappointed with the party over development funds for Lyari as he believed that the money was not genuinely spent. His friends stated that Shad had also developed differences with local PTI office-bearers of Lyari. They added that the Lyari MNA was also unhappy when the PTI formed a committee of its MNAs for the development of Karachi but did not include him in that.

They also said that when the PTI chairman visited Karachi, Shad would not be invited to meet him and he felt that he had been sidelined.

When Taj was asked about Shad’s grievances regarding development funds, the PTI MPA said it could not be the case as development funds given to an MNA could not be released without that MNA’s signature.

Former Sindh governor Imran Ismail also expressed his disappointment with Shad on Twitter. In a tweet, he wondered how Shad’s conscience suddenly bothered him after he had submitted nomination papers for the by-election.

However, Shad’s friends said he was not willing to submit nomination papers for the by-election and it was Ismail who convinced him to do so. Even after that, Shad did not participate in any corner meeting for the by-election campaign of the PTI chairman.