The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday de-notified 43 more Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members of the National Assembly (MNAs) following the acceptance of their resignations by NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. After the announcement of PTI MNAs’ return to the National Assembly, the federal government made a move to accept their resignations in an apparent bid to reduce the number of opposition lawmakers.

The de-notified PTI MNAs includes Riaz Fatyana, Sardar Tariq Hussain, Mohammad Yaqub Sheikh, Murtaza Iqbal, Sardar Mohammad Khan Leghari, Zile Humma, Rukhsana Naveed, Ghazala Saifi, Nousheen Hamid, Sobia Kamal Khan and others. Earlier, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) received resignations of 43 more MNAs of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has accepted and forwarded 43 resignations of the PTI MNAs to the ECP for approval. Prior to this the PTI Secretary General Asad Umar in his tweet said the PTI’s 44 MNAs had decided to withdraw their resignations. He said the PTI has been demanding the NA speaker to accept all the resignations in one go but he remained reluctant to do the same as he announced to approve the resignations one by one after meeting with the lawmakers.

It is pertinent to mention here that after the announcement of PTI MNAs’ return to the National Assembly, the federal government made a move to accept their resignations in an apparent bid to reduce the strength of opposition lawmakers. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had decided to resign from the National Assembly on April 11 last year, minutes before the election of Shehbaz Sharif as the new prime minister.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-INP