Seven family suites owned by former PTI lawmakers are given to CDA.
ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) began an operation on Friday to remove PTI MNAs from their family suites in Parliament Lodges after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) de-notified them.
Seven family suites were evacuated by the civic organisation with the assistance of the district administration and police. Former PTI MPs Farrukh Habib, Zahoor Ahmed Qureshi, Shandana Gulzar, Shahid Ahmed Khattak, Gul Dad Khan, and Arbab Amir Ayub were among those who resided in these apartments.
Shafqat Mahmood, Ali Haider Zaidi, Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, Maleeka Ali Bokhai, and Faheem Khan, according to sources at the CDA, willingly left their suites on Friday. They claimed that the PTI legislators who still resided in their official residences had asked for an extension of time to leave because they needed to obtain no-objection certificates (NOCs) from various utility service providers.
They promised the CDA they would give the suites up on their own will in a few days. The authorities claimed that a few months ago, when the first batch of PTI MNAs accepted their resignations, the CDA acquired some suites from parliamentarians. They claimed that on January 24, following the acceptance of more recent resignations, the CDA gave 80 or so MPs notices that they had one week to depart their official houses.
After a successful motion of no confidence was passed against the then-prime minister Imran Khan, 131 PTI MNAs offered their resignations in a mass resignation in April of last year. The PTI made the decision to leave the parliament because they believed that a global conspiracy had been responsible for the overthrow of their party’s government.
The current administration asserted that it was constitutional to remove the prime minister via a no-confidence vote. Speaker of the National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf accepted the resignations of over 120 legislators out of the 131 who had presented letters of resignation on four separate occasions. Legislators are not permitted to reside in Parliament Lodges after being de-notified by the ECP, per the rules.
The CDA authorities stated that they were hoping the remaining politicians would leave the suits voluntarily; if not, an operation would be carried out the next week. The CDA had asked the district magistrate for help with the eviction operation on Thursday before carrying out today’s operation.
“In pursuance to cancellation of family suites at Parliament Lodges by National Assembly Secretariat on January 24, 2023 due to de-notification order issued by ECP, vacation notices were served to the occupants/Ex-MNAs for vacation of suites, peacefully until January 31,” the letter to the magistrate read on Thursday.
It added that an operation had been scheduled for Friday and that, as a result, assistance was needed, adding that the National Assembly Secretariat was pushing hard for an early vacation and the transfer of ownership of family suites. According to the officials, the district magistrate gave the CDA police protection and provided area magistrate Mustafa Chandio for the operation, which was carried out without incident.
