As talks with MQM-P fail, Sattar to contest NA-245 by-poll independently

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) disgruntled leader Dr Farooq Sattar on Monday announced contesting the NA-245 by-election as an independent candidate after the talks with the party leadership failed.

Sattar, a veteran politician who is also the head of his own faction of the MQM-P, said he had not left the party but had been forced to part ways with it. “The party’s voters and supporters wanted a reunified MQM, and talks had started to unify the all of the factions of the party,” he said while addressing a news conference. “However, negotiations with the MQM-P’s coordination committee, particularly convenor Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, have failed because they refused my suggestion to convene a workers’ convention where the workers could devise a strategy for the reunification process.”

Sattar said that during the negotiations, he had withdrawn his appointed candidates in favour of the MQM-P in the Hyderabad district. He said that the MQM-P had not thought about him over the past four years after the party’s defeat in the 2018 general elections.

He also said he would contest the by-poll for the NA-245 constituency, where he lives, as an independent candidate. He added that his electoral symbol is the lock. The National Assembly seat had fallen vacant after the death of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MNA Amir Liaquat Hussain. The by-poll for the constituency would be held on July 27. In the 2018 general elections, Hussain had won the seat by securing 56,615 votes, while Sattar on the MQM-P ticket had ranked second with 35,247 votes.

The MQM-P has fielded Mooed Anwar, former chairman of the East District Municipal Corporation, for the NA-245 by-poll. Sattar also announced that his group has fielded 70 candidates from Karachi under the banner of ‘Azad Pakistan Panel’ for the local government polls scheduled for July 24.

An MQM-P leader told The News that the party’s coordination committee had refused to accept Sattar’s condition to accommodate his LG panel in the upcoming elections, and because of that the talks had failed.