A brisk welcome: PTI MPAs rejoin Sindh Assembly

KARACHI: Four MPAs of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Samar Ali Khan, Syed Hafeezuddin, Khuram Sher Zaman and Seema Zia, attended the Sindh Assembly session on Monday following the party’s decision to return to parliamentary politics.

They had tendered their resignations in September 2014 after the protest and sit-in against rigging in the general elections by their party in Islamabad. Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani welcomed them to the session. PTI’s parliamentary leader Samar Ali Khan said they were on a mission to strengthen democracy and had come back to the assembly to continue the struggle.

Durrani had accepted the PTI members’ resignations in January and announced to de-seat them in a session. “PTI members are no more MPAs of this house. Today, I am sending this notification to the election commission to conduct by-polls,” he had said. After the assembly session, PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari had called Durrani and asked him to take back the decision.

According to sources in the Sindh Assembly, the resignation had already been dispatched through the courier service, but the provincial assembly staff had hurriedly pursued the TCS courier service office and taken back the envelope that was addressed to the election commission.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2015.