Pakistan’s lawmakers from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party threatened to resign from their parliament if the party's reservations regarding PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif's nomination as the prime minister are not addressed.
Senior PTI leader and former information minister of Pakistan Fawad Chaudhry came up with the statement while talking to the media in Islamabad with a host of other PTI leaders and officials, reports Dawn.
The announcement comes a day after Imran Khan lost his government via a successful no-confidence move in the National Assembly.
Chaudhry said a meeting of the PTI's central core executive committee (CEC) was held in Bani Gala with Imran Khan where the whole situation was analysed.
He said the CEC recommended to Khan that the PTI should resign from the assemblies starting with the National Assembly. "If our objections on Shehbaz Sharif's [nomination] papers are not addressed then we will resign tomorrow," he said.
Elaborating on the PTI's decision to nominate its Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi for the prime minister's position after a successful vote of no-confidence against Khan, Chaudhry said that contesting the election offered the party a way to challenge Shehbaz's nomination papers.
He said it was a "great injustice" that Shehbaz would be contesting the election for the prime minister on the same day he is to be indicted in a money laundering case.
"What can be more insulting for Pakistan that a foreign selected and foreign imported government is imposed on it and a person like Shehbaz is made its head," he rued.
It is pertinent to mention that a special court (Central-I) of the Federal Investigation Agency is likely to indict Shehbaz and son Hamza in Rs14 billion money laundering case on Monday (April 11).
Awami Muslim League chief, Sheikh Rashid, a key ally of the PTI, who spoke before Chaudhry, was more direct and firm in the resignations announcement.
"It has been decided that we can't be involved with these thieves and dacoits in the assembly. Everyone decided with a unanimous consensus that we are going to resign en masse from the NA," he said. "All members will resign."
