Fissures are developing in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ranks as at least 13 MNAs from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa opposed to party chairman Imran Khan’s decision of resigning from the National Assembly have formed a group led by MNA Gulzar Khan as more MNAs are reportedly considering joining the dissidents, a report in Dawn newspaper said on Sunday.
According to the report, the meeting of the dissident MNAs was held after behind-the-scenes deliberation following the PTI core committee’s statement about the resignation of its lawmakers.
“We had told Imran Khan that we would resign only if the KP chief minister, ministers and MPAs resigned. We will not quit our seats without them,” the paper quoted a dissident as saying. He added that the party leadership’s attempt to save their government in KP and at the same time asking MNAs to resign, smacked of opportunism. “There is no principle here,” the lawmaker said.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who submitted resignations of PTI parliamentarians to the National Assembly Secretariat, said he had not counted how many of the 34 party lawmakers have resigned, but added that two or three MNAs were out of the country and would submit their resignations upon their return.
A party leader said only three MNAs from KP have so far not submitted their resignations and they had been asked to furnish them as soon as possible.
The Dawn report claimed that the PTI had submitted 17 resignations, some addressed to the chairman of the party, rather than the Speaker of National Assembly.
Another lawmaker said the decision to quit the National Assembly was arbitrary and had been made without consulting the party’s legislators. “We have been pushed into a blind alley,” the lawmaker said.
“Even if we resign and our resignations are accepted, what next,” the party legislator wondered. “Nobody seems to have an answer to this,” he said, adding that the question was raised at the party’s core committee meeting too.