The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday denotified 43 more lawmakers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as members of the National Assembly (MNAs).
The development comes a day after National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted their resignations despite their announcement to withdraw their resignations in a bid to bar opposition leader Raja Riaz, a dissident PTI leader, from negotiating with the government on caretaker set-up in case general elections are announced.
The move has taken the tally of PTI resignations approved by the speaker to 124 as he approved 70 earlier this week and 11 in August last. The resignations were submitted by the PTI MNAs in April last in protest against the ouster of of Imran Khan as prime minister through a no-confidence vote.
The ECP has accepted the resignations of 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.
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On Monday, 45 PTI MNAs tried to meet the speaker to withdraw their resignations but he was unavailable. Later, they staged protest outside parliament and a sit-in outside the official residence of the speaker in the federal capital. They also urged the top electoral body to not denotify them.
The swift approval of the resignations came after Imran Khan-led party took a U-turn on resignations and announced its return to the assembly to put Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to test through a no-confidence vote.