After resignations, PTI MNAs not allowed to enter Parliament: Speaker

ISLAMABAD     -   Some former MNAs of Pakistan Teh­reek-e-Insaf (PTI) belonging to Ka­rachi on Wednesday staged a protest sit-in outside the Parliament House after they were denied entry into the building to attend the National As­sembly session.

The opposition PTI’s former mem­bers of National Assembly (MNAs) also protested over the speaker’s ruling that didn’t allow them to at­tend proceedings of the lower house of the parliament.

Police forcibly prevented the ex-lawmakers from entering the building, which led to scuffle be­tween the law enforcers and the op­position party politicians.

Earlier in the day, the PTI in an an­nouncement said that its MNAs from Karachi would attend the NA session as the Sindh High Court has restored their membership of the house by suspending the notification of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that had de-seated them. They include Faheem Khan, Attaullah, Je­hangir Alam, Saifur Rehman, Mo­hammad Aslam Khan and Aftab Sid­diqui, among others, according to the party’s Central Secretariat.

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All PTI MNAs, except some dis­gruntled lawmakers of the par­ty, had resigned en masse from the house in April last year as a protest against the removal of then prime minister Imran Khan from his of­fice through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.

The ex-lawmakers during their protest claimed that they have a court order in their hand and should be allowed entry into the parliament to attend the house sitting.

On the other hand, National As­sembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf declared that members of the PTI, who had resigned, would not be al­lowed to participate in the house proceedings. A spokesperson of the National Assembly said that the speaker has taken the decision fol­lowing consultation with consti­tutional experts. He said that the Sindh High Court has suspended the notification of ECP about the resignations of PTI MNAs but has not yet made a decision regarding the speaker’s ruling on eligibility of the resigned PTI members to par­ticipate in NA proceedings. “Those MNAs, who had resigned, are no more members of the house,” he said. The spokesperson also under­lined that the rules prohibit the en­try of strangers into the assembly.

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