THIS is apropos of the news report about the MQM parting ways with the PPP government.

Pir Pagara rightly predicted a month ago at a Hyderabad gathering that the MQM, within a few days, would leave the government and sit on opposition benches. And it has happened.

The MQM is citing it as non-compliance over the local government bill and withdrawing of cases against Lyari gangsters. They may be the apparent reasons but it can be something else behind the scenes.

This strategy of the MQM and the PPP is only to bring their own caretaker government in Sindh in order to steal the elections and again be the major ruling coalition partners for the next five years.

Their separation at the eleventh hour shows that they may not have any other reasonable motives of taking this step.

If the chief election commissioner understands the tactics of the PPP and the MQM, he needs to take notice of it seriously and use his powers to control the situation and address the issue.

Otherwise, it would cause damage to those parties which have remained in opposition longer than the MQM’s ruling of four years and 11 months.

AGHA ATTAULLAH KHAN Islamabad