PTI parliamentary committee reposes faith in Imran Khan’s leadership, endorses decisions

Expelled PTI member says he has not left the party, rather they were evicted without procedure.

ISLAMABAD: The parliamentary committee of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday reposed faith in party chief Imran Khan's leadership and endorsed his decisions taken during the Azadi March sit-in.

However, there was no official statement from the party on this development.

“The parliamentary party has discussed all the issues at length that arose during the current political situation and expressed the confidence over the decisions and leadership of Imran Khan,” the party's vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi told The Express Tribune on Thursday. He said that all members, except the four MNAs including Javed Hashmi, who had resisted the party's decision of resigning from the assembly, participated in the meeting.

“There was no difference over the decision of Khan sahib and every participant has expressed his confidence over the decision,” he maintained.

Responding to a question, Qureshi claimed that the decision to resign from the National Assembly was still intact despite his speech in the Parliament the other day. This process will be completed in due course of time.

“There is no change in the decision, which is the decision of the chairman and is still intact,” he said about the resignations.

Meanwhile, the expelled member Gulzar Khan claimed that according to his information 26 out of 34 members had submitted their resignations so far. He alleged that he and other two members have been expelled by the party for their opposition to the decision to resign from assemblies.

“We have not tendered our resignations from the assembly, neither do we have any intention to do so in future,” said Gulzar. He maintained that there is no threat to their assembly memberships under the Political Parties Act-1973.

Per the Act, Gulzar said that a member can lose his membership of the assembly if he votes for the candidate of Prime Minister or assembly speaker who is other than the the party nominee or votes against the party decision in the passage of the budget. He said that the clause 63-A of the Political Party Act-1973 simply does not apply to them.

“We have not left the party, rather we were expelled without procedure,” he said.

 

Party president Javed Hashmi had voluntarily presented his resignation at the end of his speech in the assembly. The NA secretariat had accepted the resignation and has referred the matter to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).