KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan called off its multi-party conference on Tuesday after five mainstream political parties boycotted the moot.
Turning the multi-party conference into a presser, MQM chief Farooq Sattar lashed out at the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Awami National Party (ANP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) for “initially agreeing to show up at the conference and then announcing boycott through media”.
“The people of Sindh will boycott those parties in the upcoming election which have boycotted our conference today,” said a furious Sattar. The MQM-P chief, however, thanked the Pakistan Sarzameen Party (PSP), the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), Awami Tehreek and other parties for showing their support for his party.
“Mustafa Kamal and Afaq Ahmed were ready to attend the conference along with leaders of other political parties,” he said. “But the boycott of five parties led us to postpone the conference.”
Sattar said the MQM-P had chosen Aug 22 to hold the press conference in a bid to collectively denounce Altaf Hussain’s anti-state rhetoric. “Last year, he made an anti-Pakistan speech on this day. Instead of standing by us for condemnation of Altaf Hussain, the five parties chose to boycott the conference which is not understandable.”
Sattar said the MQM-P made an unprecedented decision by distancing from the party’s founder following his anti-state speech on Aug 23, 2016. “We made this sacrifice for the country’s betterment.”
Lashing out at the MQM founder, Sattar said the videos and audios coming from London were not tolerable. “His [Altaf Hussain’s] statements against the country and its people are not pardonable.”
Calling out MQM-London leaders Nadeem Nusrat and Wasay Jaleel, he said the London faction had made a video showing that unknown people wearing masks were burning the country’s flags.
He challenged both of the MQM-London leaders to come to Pakistan and then dare do such an activity. “I want to tell Nadeem Nusrat and Wasay Jaleel that if they dared to burn the country’s flag while being in Pakistan, their family members will surely stand by the MQM-P to stop them from committing such an act.”
The MQM-P chief said the agenda of the conference was to start a dialogue as how to grapple with the challenges the country was facing, how to curb corruption in the country, and how to ensure due rights for the local bodies’ representatives across Pakistan.
Had the five parties been serious to find solutions to these problems, they would not have boycotted the conference, he added. Sattar said the media should ask the five parties as to why they had first committed to attend the conference and later on announced a boycott without citing any reason. He said the vote bank of Karachi was still intact and the MQM-P would not let any party hijack the upcoming election.
