When MNA Abdul Shakoor Shad was applying for PTI’s ticket to contest election in 2018, I was the person who had filled in his online application form.
Not only of Shad, but I had filled in the forms of many candidates who were seeking PTI tickets to contest election on national and provincial assemblies seats. Then, my duty was in PTI Secretariat ‘Insaf House’, and I performed my duties as a non-political employee.
Yesterday, while hearing Shakoor Shad’s petition against acceptance of his resignation, the Islamabad High Court remarked that it only suspended the acceptance of the petitioner resignation, not the acceptance of all 11 PTI members’ resignations.
The court cleared that the notification of resignation has been suspended only to the extent of the member who had moved the court i.e. Abdul Shakoor Shad. The lawyer of the petitioner said that the Election Commission had issued a joint notification for 11 members. On this Chief Justice Islamabad High Court Justice Athar Minullah said that the notification is common to all, but the court has suspended the notification only to the extent of one member. Later, the hearing was adjourned.
Earlier, when Abdul Shakoor Shad filed a case in the High Court, PTI took action against him and suspended his party membership. PTI Sindh chapter also issued a show-cause notice to him. The show-cause notice said that Shad submitted a handwritten resignation and then also shared it on his personal Twitter account. He also changed his Twitter status to ex-MNA and later submitted his nomination papers as Imran Khan’s covering candidate in the NA-246 by-election.
The show- cause while addressing Shad said ”you talked on media against the party policy on various occasions. Suddenly you filed a case in the Islamabad High Court against the party policy and took the position that you did not resign?’’
A question can be asked here that Abdul Shakoor Shad is saving his National Assembly membership, why does PTI object to this? Actually, PTI’s objection is not new, it object from the day since Imran Khan was ousted by a no-confidence motion. On this occasion, if PTI wanted, it could have sat on the opposition benches, and if it had done so, the present government, which PTI is calling an imported government, could have faced a lot of trouble.
However, instead of doing so, the PTI issued instructions to its members to resign, with the aim of sending the current government home as soon as possible and reinforcing Imran Khan’s demand for early general elections.
Perhaps, Abdul Shakoor Shad is thinking that since resigning has made no difference to the current government, it is better to save his membership, however, the party leadership has sent him a show- cause notice rejecting this idea. Wait and see what is coming out from this new issue.
