PSP gets its first female Muttahida dissident

MPA Bilquis Mukhtar announces resignation from
her assembly seat and joins Mustafa Kamal’s party

Karachi

Bilquis Mukhtar, a female MPA of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), announced on Wednesday that she was resigning from her seat and joining the Mustafa Kamal-led Pak Sarzameen Party.

Mukhtar made the announcement at a press conference at the PSP’s headquarters, Pakistan House, in the presence of party chief Kamal.

Following the announcement she chanted the slogan, “Hum na hoon humaray baad Pak Sarzameen Shad Baad.”

Mukhtar is the first female MQM leader who has switched sides. Sources said more female MQM leaders are expected to follow suit, including Erum Farooqui.

However, MQM information department in-charge Amin-ul-Haq refuted these reports saying that Farooqui was currently residing in the US.

Farooqui had resigned from the party in September last year saying that she could not work with opportunists, but was later asked by party chief Altaf Hussain to rejoin the party. 

Earlier, former MQM senator Mohammed Ali Brohi too had joined the PSP.

Mukhtar was a member of the provincial assembly’s standing committees on minorities affairs, women development and social welfare.

She was also a founding member of the MQM’s first coordination committee and among those who had reopened Nine-Zero after it was sealed by the authorities. 

Talking to reporters, Kamal said besides key figures, thousands of others had also joined the party and in the coming days, more would follow suit.

Mukhtar said she had made the decision after much consideration. “I have been listening to Kamal’s speeches and after much deliberation, I have decided to join the PSP,” she added.

“We are not here to show that we are against anyone.”  Mukhtar said she had resigned from the provincial assembly out of her own choice.

Sources said Mukhtar was very close to the MQM chief. They added that she lived in the vicinity of Nine-Zero, the MQM headquarters, and a day before her announcement that she was joining the PSP, she shifted to Defence.