LAHORE: The PML-N leadership has given a deadline of Wednesday (tomorrow) to its 154 members of the Punjab Assembly for submitting their resignations from the provincial house reflecting the party’s seriousness and urgency with regard to the opposition’s agitation plan aimed at ousting the government.

The direction was given to the PML-N lawmakers by opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz at the party’s parliamentary meeting here on Monday.

Mr Hamza, son of PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif, is currently attending the assembly’s session after Speaker Chaudhry Parvez Elahi issued his production order.

Hamza has been in Kot Lakhpat jail for over one and a half years in the money laundering and income beyond means cases instituted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is also probing into Rs25bn money laundering charges against him.

The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), the opposition alliance formed in September last to oust the government of Imran Khan, has given a Dec 31 deadline to its components to submit their lawmakers’ resignations (to its leadership).

“Since not many resignations of the PML-N provincial lawmakers have been submitted to the leadership so far, Hamza, on the direction from the top leadership, directed the MPAs to show haste in handing over their resignations to the leadership by Wednesday (tomorrow),” a party insider told Dawn.

He said the PML-N leadership did not want to face embarrassment and was ensuring that all of its lawmakers submit their resignations ahead of the PDM deadline. No such deadline has been given by the party to its National Assembly members.

The PML-N has 159 MPAs in Punjab, but since it expelled its five lawmakers in October last for meeting Chief Minister Usman Buzdar in violation of the party discipline, it did not ask them for their resignations. Those who have been expelled from the party are Nishat Ahmed Daha and Faisal Niazi from Khanewal, Mian Jalil Ahmed Sharaqpuri from Sheikhupura, Muhammad Ghiasuddin from Narowal and Ashraf Ansari from Gujranwala.

Interestingly, one of them, Mian Jalil Ahmed Sharaqpuri on Monday submitted a ‘conditional’ resignation to Mr Elahi, requesting him accept it if other lawmakers from his area – MNA Rana Tanvir Hussain and MPAs Pir Ashraf Rasool and Abdur Rauf – submitted their resignations by Dec 31. Mr Sharaqpuri had opposed the party Quaid Nawaz Sharif for speaking against the national institutions.

PML-N lawmaker Samiullah Khan told Dawn that Hamza Shehbaz had directed the party MPAs to submit their resignations by Wednesday so that the leadership could collect them well before the PDM deadline (Dec 31).

When asked whether the PML-N leadership was showing an urgency in this matter fearing some defections, Mr Khan said: “This is not the case. All its lawmakers will submit their resignations. We have not sought resignations from the five MPAs the party had expelled.”

He said Mr Hamza would also resign from the assembly on Tuesday (today). The PDM has given a clear deadline to Prime Minister Imran Khan to step down by Jan 31, with the warning that otherwise a march on Islamabad would result in the ouster of the PTI government.

The PML-N believes the Senate elections due in March next will not be held if the opposition tenders resignations en masse.

Several PTI leaders have claimed that the opposition will not resign from the assemblies as it is using this as a ‘pressure tactic’.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2020