KARACHI: Accusing the Pakistan Peoples Party of having created an urban-rural divide in the 1970s, Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain asked the ruling party in Sindh on Sunday to abolish the quota system for the rural and urban populace if it really believed that the people living in urban areas were true Sindhis.

“No one wants a division of Sindh ... if the PPP will not consider us equal then it should make a Sindh One province for Sindhis and Sindh Two for people whom it [the PPP] doesn’t consider to be Sindhis ... people living in urban Sindh are ready to become number two,” Mr Hussain said in a telephonic address from London to supporters gathered in a ground on Rashid Minhas Road here in connection with local government elections.

He insisted that he had not demanded a division of Sindh in his address to a public meeting in Hyderabad on Friday. “I am not giving a clarification ... my previous statement was quoted out of context and now I request everybody to note my speech with proper context.”

He said neither Mohajirs nor the MQM had talked about a division of Sindh: “We just said if you don’t want us then give us a new home.”

The MQM chief said the PPP government had in the 1970s introduced a 60 per cent rural quota and 40pc urban quota for 10 years, but it was still in place in 2014 despite the fact that urban population had increased manifold since then.

“If Sindhi nationalists and the PPP consider Mohajirs as Sindhis then they should explain why only Sindh has a separate quota system for its urban and rural people and why other three provinces do not have this kind of quota system,” he asked.

He urged the PPP government to announce abolition of the quota system if it was sincere with the people living in urban localities. He said that by raising its voice for the people of urban areas, the MQM talked about the rights of permanent residents of Sindh, including Sindhis, Punjabis, Pakhtuns, Baloch, Hazarewal, etc. “MQM is also a representative party of the people belonging to other ethnic backgrounds in Sindh.”

While he berated his opponents, including the Jamaat-i-Islami, he was full of praise for the Sindh High Court for declaring void the delimitation carried out for LG elections in the province and said the PPP government had refused to listen to the grievances of his party on delimitation.

Mr Hussain called upon the authorities to carry out a fresh delimitation exercise, as proposed by the SHC, through an independent commission. He said that using force was not a solution to any problem. “I want to resolve all matters through talks ... please accept us so that we can together fight against enemies of the country.”

Habib Khan Ghori adds: Commenting on the MQM chief’s statement, Sindh information and local government minister Sharjeel Memon of the PPP said his party had never discriminated on the basis of urban and rural population and claimed the quota system of 40 and 60pc was not only in force in Sindh but the rest of the country too.

“Sindh is one province and its division is not acceptable in any manner,” he said, adding that if there was any issue it could be solved through negotiations, but as far as “Sindh is concerned it was one, is one and will always remain one province”.