Barrister Gohar steps down from four NA committees on Imran Khan's direction

• Barrister Gohar quits four NA committees. 
• Junaid Akbar resigns as chairman of PAC.
• Ali Asghar steps down from three NA bodies. 

As the country’s politics takes new twists and turns, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan on Thursday resigned from four standing committees of the National Assembly in line with the directions of the party’s founder, Imran Khan.

The PTI chairman quit four key committees in the lower house of parliament. He was serving on the committees for Law and Justice, Human Rights, Information Technology, and the House Business Advisory.

At least 18 PTI lawmakers, including Barrister Gohar, have resigned from the NA bodies so far.

The move comes as part of the former ruling party’s political strategy, which also includes boycotting upcoming by-elections scheduled for the coming months.

The PTI lawmakers started quitting the NA committees after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in July and August disqualified a large number of PTI leaders over their alleged involvement in the May 9, 2023, riots.

Besides Barrister Gohar, PTI lawmaker Faisal Amin Gandapur — brother of KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur — Shaharyar Afridi, Junaid Akbar Khan, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Amir Dogar, and others have tendered their resignations from the NA bodies.

MNAs Ali Asghar, Sajid Khan, Shahid Khattak, Faisal, and Asif Khan submitted their resignations from various NA committees yesterday.

Asghar stepped down from the Cabinet, Privatisation, and Planning committees, while Sajid Khan resigned from the Overseas, National Heritage, and Kashmir-related committees, declaring he would even vacate his assembly seat if instructed by Khan.

Faisal left the Economic Affairs, Food Security, and Parliamentary Task Force committees.

Khattak announced he was withdrawing from all standing committees, while Asif resigned from the Education, National Heritage, Culture, and Information and Broadcasting committees.

Separately, Junaid relinquished his position as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, submitting his resignation to the party’s chief whip, Dogar, in line with the PTI political committee’s directive. Party sources confirmed that the National Assembly Speaker, Ayaz Sadiq, has received the resignations of Faisal and Ali.

PTI spokesperson Sheikh Waqas also resigned from all NA standing committees. He sent his resignation to NA Speaker Sadiq a day earlier.

Meanwhile, Imran also instructed PTI leaders to quit the Judicial Commission, terming the party’s participation in it as ineffective, sources said.

Barrister Gohar and Senator Ali Zafar are part of the commission.

The PTI had also announced that it will boycott the upcoming by-elections in constituencies of party members disqualified in the May 9 cases, declaring those individuals its "true representatives."

Several constituencies are up for grabs as the ECP recently disqualified several lawmakers belonging to the PTI following their convictions in cases related to the May 9 riots.

The ruling allies — Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — had announced they would jointly contest the upcoming by-elections nationwide.