ISLAMABAD: Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has summoned four of the six lawmakers who recently parted ways with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and resigned from their seats in the Lower House of the Parliament.
The speaker has summoned Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Basit Bukhari, Qasim Noon and Tahir Bashir Cheema for confirmation of their resignations from the National Assembly, according to officials of the assembly secretariat.
On April 10, eight lawmakers from south Punjab announced their decision to quit the ruling party and resign from their seats in the NA and Punjab Assembly.
The dissidents included six MNAs and two MPAs namely Samiullah Chaudhry, Rana Qasim Noon, Tahir Iqbal, Asghar Ali Shah, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Tahir Bashir Cheema, Sardar Nasrullah Dreshak and Makhdoom Basit Bukhari.
They had announced to form a front to launch struggle for carving out a separate province in south Punjab.
The PML-N leaders, however, downplayed the desertions with former premier Nawaz Sharif saying that “these lawmakers were never ours.”
Sharif said the lawmakers had also not voted for him during the election of the party president after his disqualification at the hands of the apex court in Panama case. “People like them disgrace politics,” he said and added they keep switching loyalties.
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