‘MQM has lost, but Kamran Tessori has won’

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) suffered a major setback in the Senate elections on Saturday, as the party managed to secure only one general seat – and that too after a lot of struggle.

Dr Farogh Nasim of the party’s Bahadurabad group bagged only 14 votes and, eventually, won through the preferential method. Consequently, the MQM-P’s standing in the Senate has reduced from eight to five, and it has lost the label of being the fourth largest political party in the upper house of the parliament.

The senator elect will represent the MQM-P again, along with his existing counterparts Khushbakht Shujaat, Mian Muhammad Ateeq Shaikh, Muhammad Ali Khan Saif and Nighat Mirza.

Over the past four years the party’s MPA strength has reduced from 50 to 37, thanks to the nine members who quit – seven of whom joined the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) and one the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) – and the four who stayed out of the country, apparently due to an operation in the city.

The defeat has increased the prevailing tension between the Farooq Sattar-led PIB group and the Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui-led Bahadurabad faction of the MQM-P.

“Today the MQM has lost, but Kamran Tessori has won,” Aminul Haque of the Bahadurabad group told The News in reaction to the results of the Senate elections.

Tessori, who now appears to have become a close confidant of Sattar, was allegedly the primary reason for the infighting within the party. The two groups surfaced publicly last month when the Bahadurabad faction disagreed over Tessori’s candidacy for the Senate polls, as the PIB group backed him and insisted on his nomination.

Haque claimed that the MQM-P had lost because of Sattar’s “stubbornness and arrogance” in Tessori’s matter. “The party lost its identity also... that it supported and elevated the middle-class and oppressed segments of society to the parliament. The lust for money and power has polluted it.”

But Sattar rejected the allegations that Tessori was paying him for gaining the party’s support. Talking to the media outside the Sindh Assembly, he accused the PPP of horse-trading and cast doubts on the transparency and impartiality of the Senate polls.

He said that at least six of his MPAs apparently defected to vote for other parties’ candidates. The PIB faction chief denied that his party had lost because of infighting.

“One after another our people, including lawmakers, were forced to join other parties. And some of the MPAs started selling their votes, using the party crisis as an excuse.”

MQM-P MPA Shazia Jawaid, who was among the lawmakers who voted for the PPP, explained that she had voted for the ruling party to defy Sattar, who, she said, put the party at stake just for Tessori. “I did not take money from anybody,” she clarified.

Another party lawmaker, Naila Munir, said she had voted for the PPP out of the frustration that had developed over the past few days. She said party values should not have been sacrificed for one person.

“Khawaja Izharul Hasan had assured me that Tessori won’t be a candidate, but then he was. I asked Heer Soho to take me to the chief minister’s dinner.”