Shabbir Qaimkhani joins PSP

KARACHI: Shabbir Qaimkhani, a former Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan coordination committee member who was one of the main actors in the party’s February 5 split, joined the Pak Sarzameen Party on Saturday.

Qaimkhani had ended his more than 30-year-long association with the MQM on April 4 over the ongoing power struggle between the PIB and Bahadurabad groups of the party. He was the party’s candidate for Senate election on whose seat the two groups had engaged in an altercation.

Addressing a press conference at PSP headquarters, Pakistan House on Saturday, he said that he joined the PSP after a lot of consideration, debate and arguments, and credited Mustafa Kamal and Anis Kaimkhani, the PSP president, for convincing him to do so.

About his affiliation with the MQM, he said that he and Anis had joined the party together and worked alongside for three decades. He said he didn’t want to go into details of his reason to leave MQM-P.

He, however, added, “We need to look back at our struggle and think about why we have been unable to achieve our goals. After 35 years, I am changing the party because it is not the MQM we worked for.”

Downplaying the popular impression that people have been forced to join PSP, Shabbir Qaimkhani said he and others had joined the party voluntarily.

Qaimkhani also asked Farooq Sattar, Amir Khan and others who are in the MQM to join PSP and start a joint struggle anew from this platform.