Sattar calls for intra-party elections to seek fresh mandate from workers

Disgruntled Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan leader Dr Farooq Sattar has called for elections within the party to seek a fresh mandate from the workers on the leadership.

“It is necessary that [this year’s] February 5 position is restored in the party to steer it out of furore and crisis,” he said while addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Friday.

Sattar was the convener of the MQM-P before February 5. On that day, the party had publicly split into the PIB Colony and Bahadurabad groups, spearheaded by him and Amir Khan, respectively, after a disagreement between them on awarding tickets for the then upcoming Senate election escalated. The party has not been able to recollect since.

“Everyone knows what MQM-P is going through these days,” said Sattar at Friday’s presser. “I had resigned from my membership of the coordination committee on September 13 citing personal reasons. Today, I will tell the real reason behind it.”

He claimed that he only wanted to keep the party from further division and devastation – a note of which can be gauged from its performance in the General Election 2018 as its seats in the National Assembly fell to four this July from the 17 seats it had won from Karachi in the 2013 general polls. This is arguably the party’s all-time low position.

Sattar said that he was hurt by one person only in this whole saga and he will reveal his identity only before the state security institutions, if they ask him. He claimed that he was “punished” for foiling the plans of the Pak Sarzameen Party as he had held a press conference on November 9, 2017, a day after MQM-P and PSP declared an ill-fated merger, and had termed it be to forced.

He added that he has already written a letter to the army chief complaining about this. According to reliable sources, Sattar had complained about the alleged role of an intelligence official in the “forced” PSP and MQM-P merger, which could not even last for 24 hours.

After that, a senior intelligence official had called on him (Sattar) to apologise for the first official’s alleged behaviour and had assured that due action will be taken against him. Sattar said in his presser that he had only reconciled with the Bahadurabad group ahead of July’s general polls to disseminate a gesture of unity. He said that he, however, did not want to contest because he had a feeling that MQM-P will “be made to lose” this election. “Yet, my Bahadurabad colleagues persuaded me to contest saying that otherwise they will think that I may have returned half-heartedly.”

He said: “[Even] I was neglected and not taken onboard in the decision making. There are some people in the committee with whom I cannot work. There is a difference in how we think. That’s why I have decided that if my concerns are not heard then I will work to make an MQM Nazaryati and for that I will go to each Mohajir and party worker.”

Sattar added that he may have had “committed another sin” when he asked his colleagues to reveal their assets and had sought details of the expenditure of “billions of rupees” fund from Mayor Wasim Akhtar.

He said that MQM-P was a public interest party and it should have lodged a protest with the government over rising inflation. He commented that February 5 was “the line of divide” for the party and if his Muttahida colleagues wanted to save the party then it should be brought back to how it was before February 5.

The leader said that the Bahadurabad group had “snatched” the party convenership from him and it is necessary that both groups go together to the workers and seek their mandate to run the party.