KARACHI - The intensified MQM-Pakistan infighting resulted in a total meltdown on Sunday when its chief Dr Farooq Sattar was ‘sacked’ by the top party body and he responded with ‘dissolving’ the Rabita Committee and announcing fresh party polls in a week for electing a new leader.
The Pakistan faction of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had been grappling with erosion and other challenges since it divorced from Altaf Hussain’s London command but the fatal blow has come over the choice of party candidates for Senate elections.
Almost all the key leaders of the party rebelled against Farooq Sattar over his efforts to give a Senate seat to his jeweller-turned-politician friend Kamran Tessori, who was earlier propped up by MQM-P chief to be elected to the Sindh Assembly.
On Sunday, the Rabita Committee (coordination committee) gathered at Bahadar Abad and removed Dr Sattar from the position of Convener, electing in his place former deputy convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui.
The action came after the Election Commission allowed the Rabita Committee to hand out party tickets for Senate elections to candidates of choice, though the commission had earlier backed Farooq’s position saying that the party was registered in his name.
Hours after his deposition, Sattar stuck back by calling a general workers’ meeting at PIB Colony where he announced dissolution of the Rabita Committee and holding of fresh intra-party polls on February 17.
Addressing the gathering in KMC ground, he asked who the workers wanted as the party’s leader. The charged crowd, to which he called it a gathering of “responsible party members”, responded with chants of “Farooq Bhai, Farooq Bhai”.
Farooq Sattar said “today this gathering has been held to decide the fate of the organisation”. He asked the audience to raise hands if they wanted to see the coordination committee dissolved, to which they responded with a positive gesture.
Citing a section of the party constitution, MQM-P chief announced to sack all the conveners and deputy conveners of the party. He alleged that land mafia elements in the party and those worked for their personal gains had tried to remove him as he was “the biggest hurdle” for them.
Allegations against Sattar
Earlier in the day, party leader Kunwar Naveed Jamil explained the “many reasons” for removal of Dr Farooq Sattar from his position.
“The registration of a party as organised as the MQM was cancelled by the ECP only due to the negligence of Dr Farooq Sattar. Despite continuous reminders from the coordination committee, Sattar did not file the party workers’ wealth statements with the ECP, due to which the party’s registration was cancelled,” he added.
“Dr Sattar purposefully sabotaged the Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation [the welfare arm of the MQM] by committing gross mismanagement in its affairs,” he alleged. “Nazeer Hussain University is dysfunctional now and its employees haven’t been paid for seven months now.”
“Dr Farooq Sattar also altered the party constitution to his own benefit and took all authorities and powers for himself,” Jamil further alleged.
“We all love Farooq bhai deeply in a personal capacity. He was our party’s convener. He no longer is. We deliberated in great detail regarding this issue — the reasons I’m detailing are a small fraction of all the ones we deliberated.”
“The whole issue started when Dr Farooq Sattar tried to force Kamran Tessori as the party’s candidate for Senate elections,” he said.
Expressing the committee’s reservations regarding the rapid ascent of Kamran Tessori in the party, Jamil alleged that Tessori was only made convener of MQM at the insistence of Dr Sattar, keeping merit aside.
He also alleged that Sattar had remained unwilling to accommodate the coordination committee’s requests despite multiple overtures to seek a solution to the problem.
Jamil claimed that the committee had even abdicated its right to nominate senators completely for the sake of maintaining unity in the party, but Sattar remained unwilling to remove Tessori from the list of nominees.
“We have decided to promote the movement and not individuals,” he continued.
“Dr Farooq Sattar does not hold any position of responsibility in the party anymore. He is now a common worker of the party,” he concluded.
Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, speaking after Jamil, said Sattar’s removal had been necessitated by the latter’s call for a party workers’ convention today that would have split the party completely.
He, however, did not foreclose the possibility of Sattar being reinstated as the convener of the party, saying the committee would be open to it if Sattar “realises his error”.
Counter allegations by Sattar
Responding immediately after his ouster, Dr Farooq Sattar alleged that “I was ousted through a structured conspiracy.”
“The issue was not about the nomination of one person — they [Bahadurabad group] actually wanted to nominate their favourites,” Sattar claimed. “They are cloaking their selfish interests in their objection to [Tessor’s] nomination for Senate seats.”
“If I had made all the mistakes they claim I have made, why did they wait for the Senate election to act on them?” he asked.
“And if I had usurped all the powers in the party, how did they so successfully hold multiple meetings without my knowledge and conspire against me as well?”
“They haven’t just sacked me: they have deprived every deserving worker of the party of his due right,” he said.
“The party members had issues with me holding the authority of nominating party representatives,” he explained. “I was forever the force obstructing the selling out of Karachi and the empowerment of the qabza mafia.”
“If these people were sincere about finding a solution to the crisis, they wouldn’t have signed a declaration for my ouster on February 7 — at the same time they were sending delegations to negotiate with me.”
“The verdict will be delivered by the people’s court today,” he announced, before inviting all party workers to the KMC ground in PIB Colony for a grand convention.
“This was just a trailer: the full film will play at the KMC ground,” he said.
Later at his address to workers, Dr Sattar said, “I tried to transform the party which was known as perfect model in year 1986 but it is unfortunate that some elements in the party with wicked and immoral agenda halted this process. [They have] even ended my movement by removing me from the key slot of party.”
“Only a day ago a coordination committee member [Amir Khan] declared that none of them wanted to become party head, but regrettably they moved against him ‘today’.”