MQM-P takes another hit as Hyderabad MNA joins PSP

KARACHI: Amid the persisting impasse between the PIB Colony and Bahadurabad groups, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) lawmaker Syed Waseem Hussain joined the Pak Sarzameen Party on Sunday.

Hussain’s switch seems to have hit the MQM-P hard as he is one of the two MNAs the party had in the six National Assembly constituencies in Hyderabad. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has the rest of the seats.

Now Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, who is the convener of the MQM-P Bahadurabad group, is the lone MNA of the party in the second largest city of Sindh.

Addressing a presser with Hussain, Pak Sarzameen Party President Anis Kaimkhani, who is also from Hyderabad and holds a considerable sway there, said his party was likely to become a major player in the province’s parliamentary politics in the General Election 2018.

“The PSP will emerge as the largest party in Sindh and, hopefully, the next chief minister will be its,” he claimed. “I also invite Farooq Sattar and Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui to come join the PSP. We will work together.”

The MQM-P has lost four lawmakers, two MNAs and as many MPAs, within a week, after the Election Commission of Pakistan decision against Sattar’s convenership of the party.

MPAs Naila Munir and Naheed Begum joined the PSP on March 28, MNA Fauzia Hameed on March 29 and on Sunday Hussain jumped the ship.

Unlike before when the MQM leadership was facing allegations of working for the Indian spy agency, RAW, the narrative built at these press conferences reflected the infight of the MQM-P and its incompetence to serve its mandate.

“I can serve Muhajirs and other ethnic groups while with the PSP. Today, MQM leaders are only interested in taking over the party,” Hussain commented. He said he started his political journey in Hyderabad and hoped to reclaim the National Assembly seat for the PSP in the next polls.

“I consider Anis Kaimkhani as my elder brother,” he added.

Expressing his concerns over the preliminary delimitations in the province, Kaimkhani said the PSP had moved the court against the results as the controversial census on which they were based showed the Karachi population, for example, seven million less than it actually was.

He also condemned the excessive loadshedding Karachi was being subjected to since the current heat wave started, and demanded immediate redressal of the problems faced by the public.

Urging the federal government to take notice of the situation, he said the prime minister had busied himself with his party leader’s disqualification matters, leaving the public in misery. Similarly, he said, the Sindh government was interested in its loot and corruption while Karachi’s local bodies could not even resolve the garbage issues.

He said the PSP had started its election campaign and its leaders and workers were convincing the people to vote for them in the next polls because they had witnessed the working of the people they voted previously.

He also credited the armed forces and law enforcement agencies for the revival of cricket, especially in Karachi.