MQM-P decides to revamp party

KARACHI: After organising an impressive gathering in Hyderabad on Friday, the Mutahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan has finally decided to focus its energies to revamp the party structure in the Sindh’s urban centers, including Karachi, abandoning efforts to reunite the splintered factions and woo its disgruntled leaders back to the party folds.

The renamed MQM-P is still overcoming the turmoil after splitting away from the party founder Altaf Hussain with some of MQM central leaders and lawmakers defecting to the Pak Sarzameen Party, and some angry leaders, such as Dr Farooq Sattar, who is making troubles for the party.

The party has dissolved its district-level organizational structure and formed a Central Organizing Committee and appointed Furqan Ateeb as its head. It has also formed a Local Government Monitoring Committee under the leadership of former MNA Shaikh Salahuddin to monitor and resolve the civic issues and keep an eye on corruption and nepotism in the local government departments.

The MQM-P’s central spokesperson Syed Aminul Haque said the party has received immense support from the Karachiites in the past three months. “Now the successful gathering on Friday in Hyderabad also showed that party is still a potent force in the urban centers,” Haque, who is also MNA, told The News. Now the MQM-P has focused its entire efforts on the by-polls PS-94 Landhi scheduled on January 27, where the party is confident to win easily. The MQM-P leaders said its victory will not only reinvigorate the party which could only win four National Assembly seats from Karachi out of a total 21 seats in the July 25 general polls but also help it to overcome the internal squabbles.

Background interviews with the MQM-P leaders suggest because of our internal rift, a large number of party’s workers had distanced themselves and lost interest in the politics. “Ineffective party’s structure was also one of the reasons, according to our assessment,” said a party’s former sector-level leader. The organizational weakness, internal squabbles, lack of funds and a surge in the non-traditional voters all contributed to the dismal performance of Karachi’s leading political party in the July general election. It lost its way in Karachi after almost 30 years of unchallenged rule to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.