QUETTA: Balochistan Assembly Speaker Abdul Quddus Bizenjo stepped down from his office Monday and submitted his resignation to the secretariat.
“I, Abdul Quddus Bizenjo, hereby, tender my resignation from the office of speaker, provincial assembly of Balochistan on Monday,” said a handwritten resignation letter addressed to the Balochistan governor.
As per the letter, the speaker stepped down from his post in accordance with Article 53 and Article 127 of the Constitution.
The development comes a day after the chief minister, Jam Kamal Khan, resigned hours ahead of a vote of no-confidence against him in the assembly.
Khan had been facing criticism from the opposition as well as some members of his own Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) over the past few months.
16 members of opposition parties, who also claimed the support of some members of the ruling party, had submitted the no-confidence motion against Khan last month. Bizenjo, then speaker of the House, had fixed October 25 (Monday) for the vote.
Khan was accused of governing poorly, including doing little to counter soaring unemployment. He was also criticised for approving a budget that his opponents said would further deepen poverty in the province. Khan rejected the charges as unfounded.
Bizenjo belongs to the Awaran district of Balochistan and was elected on a Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) ticket during general elections in 2013, and on a BAP seat in the 2018 elections.
Speaking in the House Monday, BAP lawmaker Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran — who had tabled the motion — said Bizenjo will be the leader of the House in days to come.
“I had already said I won’t rest until the removal of Khan as the chief minister,” he told the legislature.
He also claimed he was offered Rs200 million in return for giving up on the demand of Khan’s resignation. “I was threatened with dire consequences after I rejected the offer.”
Bizenjo remained chief minister of the resource-rich province between January and May 2018 after he succeeded in toppling the government of Nawab Sanaullah Zehri during the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government through a no-trust vote.
Meanwhile, speaking to media outside the assembly, Saleh Sardar Bhootani, another BAP lawmaker, said a few names were under consideration for nomination to the office. He stressed that consultation on the matter was important with allied parties and not just a single party.
Bhootani said his party would strive to make the change visible for which all endeavours were being made.
The ‘missing’ MPAs:
Last week, opposition members had claimed that three female and one male MPAs had gone missing because they had signed the no-confidence motion against Jam Kamal.
The four MPAs had gone missing on the day when the angry group with the support of the opposition parties tabled the no-confidence motion in the Balochistan Assembly on Oct 20.
They later surfaced in Islamabad, claiming there had been no foul play. The MPAs, Akbar Askani, Bushra Rind, Laila Tareen and Mahjabeen Sheran, returned to Quetta in the official plane of the Balochistan government.
