Fauzia Kasuri joins PSP

KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founding member Fauzia Kasuri has joined the Pak Sarzameen Party, saying the former has “deviated from its mission after 2013 and inducted those into its fold who they were struggling against.”

Speaking to a press conference at the PSP headquarters, Pakistan House, on Thursday, Kasuri, who is also called the Mother of PTI, said she has no differences with Imran Khan but with his party that no longer worked for the cause that they intended to while founding it.

A day ago, she sent her resignation to the PTI Chairman Imran Khan and also shared it on her Twitter account. She wrote, “I have become increasingly disenchanted by the direction that party has taken and no longer see it as representative of the aspirations of the millions of the derserved citizens seeking transformative change in Pakistan.”

She added that Khan has opted to hand the reins of the party to those electables who fought against the PTI since its inception “at the cost of workers who in some cases even laid down their lives for the cause.” She called it “the final nail in the coffin” although wishing the PTI chief best, hoping he will strive to bring the change he once promised.

Meanwhile, PSP Chairman Mustafa Kamal said Kasuri's joining of the party would foster his party’s ideology and commented that people are coming out of their free will to join it. He claimed that the PSP has become the fastest growing political party in the country within two years as today it has 16 MPAs and four MNAs without contesting in any election.

Kamal criticised the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan for their demand of a separate province for Mohajirs in Sindh and said they always raised the issue before the elections. “The Pakistan People’s Party and the MQM are supporting each other behind the doors and this fixed fight is just to lure the public.” The PPP and MQM-P groups have been at odds since the former held a public meeting in Liaquatabad in April. As a response, the MQM-P did the same and raised the demand of a separate province. This led to a trade of barbs among them which escalated when the Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, during his speech in Sindh Assembly, cursed and criticised them.

Kamal said that the PPP is using the Sindhi card and the MQM-P is using the Mohajir card because they have no performance to show from their five-year tenure, for the public to convince them to vote for them again. “All of a sudden, they have become the well wishers of Mohajirs because they know that they are responsible for the garbage, power and water crises.”

Talking about former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s statement about the terrorists who carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the PSP chief said an FIR should be lodged against him for connivance with the enemies.