PESHAWAR, March 21: Deputy Speaker Ikramullah Shahid on Tuesday resigned from the office and asked Chief Minister Akram Durrani to demonstrate ‘similar courage’ and quit the post for having failed to get a party-backed candidate elected in the recently held Senate elections.

“I have been accused of violating party discipline and losing confidence of majority of the MPAs and (for that reason) I have tendered my resignation. Eight members from the chief minister’s own panel slipped and voted for a rival candidate. Lets see whether he resigns or not,” Ikramullah Shahid, who belongs to MMA, said before closing his speech that was punctuated with witty remarks and verses of poetry.

Speaker Bakht Jehan accepted Mr Shahid’s resignation immediately and thanked him for upholding principles of democracy and saving the house from division.

Mr Shahid’s resignation came as a sort of anti-climax given his defiant statements to face the no-confidence motion over allegations that he had voted for a non-MMA candidate in the Senate elections.

In his speech, Mr Shahid claimed to have obtained an injunction from the Peshawar High Court that voting on the no-confidence motion should be by secret ballot and not by show of hands. “This is my moral victory. I have won constitutional battle,” he told the house before announcing he was throwing in the towel instead of haggling over procedural issues.

The JUI-S MPA, whose party was a component of the MMA, claimed he had been punished for raising his voice against injustices done to him and his constituency.

He said that while he had been accused of violating the party discipline, no action had been taken against thirteen other MPAs who had voted against the MMA-backed candidates in the Senate elections.

“Don’t they know their names?” Mr Shahid asked, and said that eight of the MMA MPAs who voted for a non-MMA candidate belonged to the chief minister’s own panel.

The chief minister, however, denied the allegation. He told journalists later in his chamber that a party committee was looking into the matter and those found guilty of violating party discipline would be exposed and punished.

“Allegation that sixteen MPAs violated party discipline is simply not true,” he said. Without acknowledging that some party votes might have gone to the opposition-backed candidates, the CM accused the PML-Q of being the ‘biggest culprit’ in horse-trading.

“This is a reality which no one can challenge,” Mr Durrani said.

Ikramullah Shahid told the house that the government should have formed a committee and given every MPA a right to speak and defend himself instead of taking an arbitrary action. “No one should be condemned unheard,” he remarked.

He said that as deputy speaker and custodian of the house he had endeavoured to uphold parliamentary norms and given equal chance to the treasury and the opposition benches. “My only crime is that I raised voice against injustices done to me and my constituency,” he claimed.

“I don’t want to divide this house or put my friends and colleagues in a quandary. I, therefore, resign,” he announced amid desk thumping by opposition benches.