In protest: PTI MPAs submit resignations in the Sindh Assembly

Assembly office secretary refuses to receive Syed Hafeezuddin’s resignation.

KARACHI:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPAs submitted their resignations in the Sindh Assembly on Monday.

Four PTI members - Samar Ali Khan, Khurrum Sher Zaman, Syed Hafeezuddin, Dr Seema Zia - reached the secretary assembly office and handed over their resignations as part of the party's protest against the federal government and rigged elections.

The secretary, however, refused to receive Hafeezuddin's resignation as he was earlier disqualified by the election tribunal on August 7. The decision had come following rigging charges that were proven against him in the PS-93 provincial assembly constituency. The election commission had declared the runner-up candidate, Jamaat-e-Islami's Abdul Razzak, as the MPA.

Hafeezuddin argued that he had challenged the tribunal's decision in the Supreme Court, who had set aside the previous decision and had reinstated him as the MPA. However, the assembly secretary claimed that they have not yet received any notification in this regard. "Officially, we cannot consider you a member of the assembly until the election commission issues a notification about your restoration," the secretary, GM Umar Farooq, told Hafeezuddin.

Speaking to the media afterwards, PTI parliamentary leader Samar Ali Khan said that they have tendered their resignations following the party's decision to do so in all provincial assemblies, as well as the national assembly. "We cannot be part of a democratic system that is based on rigged elections," he said, adding that they would continue to protest in Karachi and other districts of the province until their demands are met.

"We simply demand that the prime minister should step down and that impartial investigations of rigging and election reforms should be carried out," he said. "PTI would have won many of the national and provincial assembly seats from several areas of Karachi had there been transparent elections."

The provincial assembly secretary told journalists after the submission of the resignations that the verification of the MPAs’ signatures and other required formalities will now commence. The secretary added that once the paperwork and formalities are finished, the assembly speaker - Pakistan Peoples Party's Agha Siraj Durrani - will have the right to either accept or reject the resignations. "If the resignations are accepted, then the speaker would issue a notification to unseat these MPAs and write to the election commission to issue a schedule to hold by-elections on the vacant seats," he said.

Earlier, 34 MNAs of the party, including Imran Khan, had submitted their resignations to the national assembly speaker on August 22. However, the national assembly speaker is yet to accept their resignations.

Tension between PTI and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz led federal government is at an all-time high after the law enforcers used force in Islamabad on the protesters marching towards the Prime Minister house. PTI supporters, along with those of Pakistan Awami Tehreek, have been staging a sit-in in Islamabad for more than two weeks.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 2^nd, 2014.