The Muttahida Qaumi Movement dramatically took the extreme step of resigning from the National Assembly, Senate and the Sindh Assembly on August 12 to send a strong message of protest against the ongoing search operation by the paramilitary Rangers in Karachi against suspected militants and criminals.

This took everyone by surprise and prompted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government and some senior politicians to consider ways and means to persuade the MQM to return to the assemblies. The resignations haven’t been accepted yet as the speakers of the National Assembly and Sindh Assembly and the Senate chairman have to ensure that these were given voluntarily in accordance with the rules and not under duress.

Considering the complete control the MQM supreme leader Altaf Hussain has over his party, there is no way that any MNA, Senator or MPA would stand up and protest that they resigned under duress. Keeping in view the MQM’s past, the generally disciplined party lawmakers willingly followed the leadership’s decision to resign.

Some of the resigning MQM lawmakers even made a dig at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) by pointing out that some of its MNAs had refused to resign despite Imran Khan’s directives.

The procedural delay in accepting the resignations has given the government time to initiate measures to bring back the MQM legislators to their respective legislature. Being a shrewd politician, Altaf Hussain has left an opening by offering that his lawmakers could take back their resignations if the party’s concerns regarding the Rangers operation in Karachi are addressed.

He has termed the Karachi operation dishonest and MQM-specific and described it as the genocide of the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs. His party leaders have claimed that 40 MQM workers had been killed, 150 were missing and many were put behind bars.

So, what is Altaf Hussain up to this time? As some analysts pointed out, the abrupt resignations enabled Altaf Hussain to turn the so-called "Minus Altaf formula" on its head by introducing the "Minus MQM" alternative. The issue has taken centre-stage and once again the ruling PML-N and other parties are ready to court Altaf Hussain and make an effort to give some relief to his party.

The MQM’s troubles are often caused by the provocative speeches that Altaf Hussain has been making from the comfort of his abode in London to his followers in Pakistan and this time even in the US. His telephonic speeches started a trend that has caught on, though the colourful founder of the MQM continues to use the medium a lot more than others.

Altaf Hussain, ailing and getting old, is prone to courting controversy. He is forever ready to retaliate against anyone crossing his path. Of late, he has adopted this queer habit of firing MQM office-bearers by shaming them publicly for not defending him enough in the media and through street protests. He is also in the habit of frequently resigning as head of the MQM and withdrawing his decision when party workers, as if on cue, beg him not to abandon them.

These theatrics have become so common and predictable that many Pakistanis have stopped taking Altaf Hussain seriously.

However, his strong criticism of the military and the generals is being taken seriously by the powers that be. Though it is no longer a taboo in Pakistan to make critical comments about the military even if the practice is still mild and rare, Altaf Hussain seems to have crossed the limits. He has invited the wrath of the military and civil establishment, which are concerned that this could become the norm if not nipped in the bud.

Altaf Hussain, living in the UK since 1992 after fleeing Pakistan due to an earlier crackdown against the MQM in Karachi, is seemingly safe from the hands of the Pakistani law at present, but he is within the ambit of the British laws. The murder case of his former party colleague Dr Imran Farooq is still haunting him and the one relating to money laundering, considered quite serious in the UK, refuses to go away.

It indeed has become difficult for MQM leaders to defend Altaf Hussain’s speeches. They come up with bizarre explanations whenever he criticises the military. Some do it cautiously unlike the past when they vociferously defended their Altaf Bhai. A number of MQM leaders such as Babar Ghauri and Haider Abbas Rizvi are unusually quiet. Others have gone underground or abroad due to fear of arrest. There are exceptions though with Dr Farooq Sattar emerging as a steadfast and articulate spokesman of MQM.

Altaf Hussain’s major sin was to seek India’s help for the Mohajirs. He went to the extent of describing the Indians as cowards for not coming to the rescue of Mohajirs whose elders originally belonged to India and migrated to present-day Pakistan at the time of independence in 1947.

The resignations appear to be the MQM’s trump card to force the government to halt the Rangers’ operation in Karachi or spare its workers. The extreme step taken by the MQM, which no doubt has harboured militants and target-killers in its ranks, has jolted the country’s politics and raised questions about the fate of the existing political set-up. However, the Nawaz Sharif government is convinced that MQM’s move to quit parliamentary politics would neither pull down the democratic set-up nor cause an end to the targetted Rangers’ operation that has brought relative peace to Karachi.

The resignations showed the impressive numbers of the MQM lawmakers representing Karachi and Hyderabad in different legislatures. Those who tendered resignations included 24 members of the National Assembly, eight Senators and 51 lawmakers in the Sindh Assembly.

There is no hint the MQM is losing support of the Mohajirs, who form a significant portion of the population in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirupurkhas, etc. and are capable of paralysing these cities through strikes. The local government elections in Sindh, in case these are finally held later in the year as planned, would provide clues to the MQM vote-bank, though there is little indication yet that there would be a major drop in its share of the vote. The MQM could even opt to take part in the by-elections once its lawmakers’ resignations are accepted and win again to prove that its vote-bank is intact despite accusations that it is involved in targeted killings, extortions, land-grabbing and other crimes.

The last time the MQM’s popularity was put to a test was during the National Assembly by-election in the NA-246 Karachi constituency. MQM’s Kanwar Naveed Jamil easily won the lopsided contest by defeating the PTI and the Jamaat-i-Islami candidates by a huge margin of more than 70,000 votes even though Imran Khan and his party candidate, Imran Ismail, created a lot of media hype to make it look like a close fight. The by-election was largely seen as free and fair unlike past elections when the MQM was accused of rigging and manipulating the outcome due to the muscle-power employed by its so-called sector commanders.

The ruling PML-N never had cordial relations with the MQM, which traditionally made coalition governments with the PPP because these two parties representing urban and rural Sindh needed to co-exist and share power. However, no party at this point of time wants to be considered close to the MQM because it has earned the ire of the powerful military establishment due to Altaf Hussain’s careless anti-army utterances. The military also wants to be seen as non-partisan by taking action against anyone involved in acts of terrorism, target-killings and other crimes whether in Fata, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan or Karachi.

In this do and die battle, the MQM has played its last card by quitting the three legislatures in which it has representation. As the Rangers’ operation is unlikely to stop even though it may be slowed down, the MQM doesn’t have many options if its gamble to resign backfires. However, its electoral strength in urban Sindh would continue to ensure MQM’s survivability unless Altaf Hussain is done in by the long arms of law in the UK.