KARACHI: The MQM internal rift doesn’t seem to be dying down anytime soonas there has been no chance of any breakthrough in the intra party talksbetween the two rival groups which emerged over the issue of the SenateTickets.
Drama continued for yet another day as a delegation of MQM-P leaders fromBahadurabad office visited PIB Colony in order to appease Farooq Sattar,who termed the letter by Rabita Committee to election commission ofPakistan as a rebellion.
“If I don’t want to become Altaf Hussain, I also don’t want to becomeMamnoon Hussain,” Sattar told media while welcoming Salman Mujahid, theparty MNA who rejoined MQM Pak here on Saturday.
“The Rabita Committee not only handed over my powers to Deputy ConvenerKhalid Maqbool Siddiqui but they also crossed the limits by writing letterto the election commission of Pakistan,” Sattar said, before his meetingwith Amir Khan led delegation kicked off for reconciliation.
MNA Salman Mujahid Baloch on Saturday once again joined the Muttahida QaumiMovement-Pakistan (MQM-P), nearly two months after he joined the PakSarzameen Party (PSP. Baloch had joined PSP in December last year, abouttwo months after being expelled from MQM-P over alleged violation of partydiscipline. He was the first MQM-P leader who had spilled the beans on theparty’s internal rifts by confirming the existence of two groups within theparty.
Baloch rejoined MQM-P after a meeting with party chief Dr Farooq Sattar onSaturday, at a time when the party is experiencing a deadlock between thesame two groups that Baloch had lifted the curtain on.
The Rabita Committee continued its efforts to convince Sattar but itsattempts remained futile. The impasse continued overnight as both factionsheld press conferences, one after another.
Scheduling a general workers’ meeting for 4 PM on Sunday, Sattar said hehad extended the “deadline” and informed the other faction that he would besending a show cause notice today.
“It is a constitutional war now,” Sattar noted, adding that he would alsopen a letter today to ask the Rabita Committee to rescind their letter tothe Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
“This letter is an indication of ‘no confidence’ in me,” he claimed, goingon to make further assertions that the Committee attempted to “snatch awaymy rights without informing me” and that he was “stabbed in the back”.
Reasoning that the whole fiasco was created “because I don’t have the kindof ‘stick’ that the MQM founder used to deploy”, Sattar appealed to all theparty workers to come out Sunday and “save the party”.
He also hinted that a change in the party’s top-tier leadership. “I willalso be making a decision about my leadership in the same meeting.” “Icannot comprehend how Kamran Tessori has this kind of importance,” FaisalSabzwari said as he spoke to reporters. He added that Sattar had toldRabita Committee members the party would not take part in the Senateelections if Tessori did not contest.
During the news conference, Sabzwari maintained that Sattar remained theparty chief; however, all authority rests with the Committee. “It is theRabita Committee which would hand over authority to the convener or partychief,” he added. When asked about the decision to write a letter to theECP, Sabzwari responded, “This decision was taken when we were unable tomeet Farooq bhai (brother) at his residence last night.”
The rift between PIB Colony and Bahadurabad factions intensified after theRabita Committee wrote the letter to the ECP in an attempt to wrestauthority from Sattar. The letter informed the ECP that the authority toissue party tickets rests with the Rabita Committee, not the party chief.
The letter also stated that as per Section 19(a) of the party’sconstitution, the authority to nominate candidates for election rests withthe Rabita Committee. It further adds that the Rabita Committee had in itssession finalised the names of candidates for the Senate elections.