National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser said on Tuesday that if anyone can prove that the number of members was less than 178 on the day the vote of confidence was sought by Prime Minister Imran Khan, he will resign from his post.
“The whole media was there — everyone saw that, excluding Faisal Vawda and I, there were 178 members [present],” Speaker Asad Qaiser responded when asked about the opposition’s claim that there were less than 178 members present during the vote of confidence in the Lower House of parliament.
He also fired back, challenging the Opposition to name which MNAs were missing during the vote. Qaiser, who was speaking to the media alongside Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani, said that there was a need to make democracy stronger.
Controversy over numbers
On the day of the vote of confidence, Opposition lawmaker Mohsin Dawar, who had turned up for the proceedings despite a wider boycott by the Opposition, had claimed that the National Assembly did not actually have 178 government members as the final vote tally showed.
Reporters present inside the parliament counted a total of 181 members, this included three unelected members which were Babar Awan, Hafeez Sheikh and Shahzad Akbar – Minus these 3, the number comes to 178 – What MNA Dawar is saying is a political statement/stunt and NOTHING more https://t.co/oMkn9spmAQ
— Anas Mallick (@AnasMallick) March 6, 2021
He had made the claim after PM Imran Khan won his vote of confidence with 178 votes.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Sunday said a probe must take place into the “controversy” surrounding the vote of confidence held in the National Assembly a day earlier, which Opposition members boycotted, but have claimed that there “weren’t enough people present” for the 178 votes obtained.
Speaking to the media following a meeting with Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz, Bilawal claimed: “Imran Khan was neither voluntarily voted as the prime minister by the Members of the Assembly, nor was he voluntarily voted for in this vote of confidence.” He termed the move to seek a trust vote “a joke”.
The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) in its factsheet said that the premier received 178 votes in his favour during the session. “164 (48%) lawmakers were present at the outset and 178 (52%) at adjournment of the sitting,” it said.
Read more: Prime Minister Imran Khan secures vote of confidence
Fafen said that parliamentary leaders from BAP, GDA, AML-P, PML-Q, MQM-P and JWP as well as five minority lawmakers also attended the session.