KARACHI: The Mutta­hida Qaumi Movement decided on Sunday night to quit the PPP-led Sindh government, only six months after having joined it.

The decision taken at a joint session of the party’s coordination committee held simultaneously in Karachi and London has been endorsed by MQM chief Altaf Hussain.

The MQM joined the coalition government in April and five of its MPAs were inducted into the cabinet of Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah.

Addressing a press conference outside the Nine Zero residence of Mr Hussain, senior MQM leader Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s “persistent verbal attacks” on the Muttahida leadership and PPP’s politics of “hatred and discrimination” had made it impossible for the party to remain in the Sindh government.

He also criticised PPP leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah’s statement that he considered Mohajir “a swear word” and said the MQM now believed that strengthening the hands of PPP was tantamount to weakening Pakistan.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s ‘persistent verbal attacks’ and PPP’s politics of ‘hatred and discrimination’ blamed

Accompanied by Farooq Sattar and other leaders, Mr Siddiqui said the MQM had suffered a lot during PPP governments and if the party wanted to do politics of hatred and ethnicity, the PPP had provided it enough material in 1997.

As MQM workers raised slogans of ‘Go Zardari go’ and ‘Go Bilawal go’, he asked Bilawal Bhutto what he had done to bring to book the people who had killed his mother Benazir Bhutto and his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The choice of words used against the PPP chairman suggests that the MQM, which gained notoriety for reversing its decisions, will not join hands with the PPP anytime soon.

“What merit do you have to become the chairman of the PPP at this age,” Mr Siddiqui asked Bilawal Bhutto. “If inheritance is the merit then heir to a Bhutto should be a Bhutto, and not a Zardari. You may inherit the Bambino cinema but not the PPP.”

He said the province had been virtually divided into “Sindh 1 and Sindh 2”. He said the MQM would continue to raise demand for new provinces in the country.

Sources in the MQM told Dawn that the coordination committee had also discussed ways of getting the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khurshid Shah, replaced.

They said the MQM was considering to support the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf if it decides to withdraw resignations of its legislators.

According to the National Assembly’s website, the PPP has 46 MNAs, the PTI 33 and the MQM 24.

If the PTI and the MQM join hands their number would reach 57 and they can get their own leader of opposition.

The MQM will ask Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani to allot opposition benches to its lawmakers. The party’s two ministers and three advisers will tender their resignation on Monday.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2014