KARACHI: A row over nomination of candidates for the March 3 Senate elections turned into an open rebellion against Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan head Dr Farooq Sattar as the party’s top decision-making forum removed his favoured candidate Kamran Tessori from the coordination committee and suspended him for six months on Monday night.

In a bid to demonstrate his control over party cadre, a beleaguered Dr Sattar along with a few leaders held a late-night press conference at his PIB Colony residence and said that he would not accept to be a powerless and ceremonial party head.

Earlier in the evening, a meeting of the coordination committee was convened at the MQM-P’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad, where Dr Sattar had an altercation with senior leader Amir Khan when the latter along with others refused to endorse the former’s proposal to field Mr Tessori as a candidate on one of the Senate general seats.

Sources said that majority of the participants seconded Mr Khan’s views upon which Dr Sattar boycotted the meeting and left for his PIB Colony residence in a huff.

Farooq Sattar’s candidate Kamran Tessori removed from coordination committee

He summoned all party members, excluding coordination committee members, to his PIB Colony home. “All elected representatives (Senators, MNAs, MPAs, Mayor, Chairman, Vice Chairman, Councillors) and the Tanzeemi members including all workers of MQM Pakistan are asked to immediately reach PIB at my house for an urgent meeting,” he tweeted.

A few party leaders, including Mr Tessori, and a number of workers reached Dr Sattar’s residence and chanted slogans in favour of Dr Sattar and against Mr Khan. However, he waited for hours to make public his future course of action.

Most MQM-P leaders stayed put at the Bahadurabad headquarters, where senior leader Dr Khalid Maqbool Sidd­iqui spoke to the media in the night and said the party had decided to nominate Nasreen Jalil (on first priority), followed by Dr Farogh Nasim, Aminul Haq, Shabbir Qaimi, Amir Khan and Mr Tessori for six Senate seats.

He said Dr Sattar wanted to “sacrifice” two of the top four candidates to accommodate Mr Tessori.

Dr Siddiqui said Mr Tessori had been removed from the coordination committee and his basic membership suspended for six months. He said Dr Sattar remained the convener of the MQM-P.

After Dr Siddiqui’s media talk, Dr Sattar emerged from his home and told reporters that it was unconstitutional to hold a party meeting without his permission. He said party workers were with him and he convened a workers’ convention at the KMC Ground in PIB Colony on Tuesday (today).

Dr Sattar has often been criticised for favouring Mr Tessori over seasoned party leaders and workers as he made the latter deputy convener, gave him a ticket to contest a by-election on a Sindh Assembly seat (PS-114) and now wants to nominate the jeweller-turned-politician for a Senate seat.

Dr Sattar took up the reins of the MQM after dissociating himself and the party from London-based founder Altaf Hussain following the latter’s Aug 22, 2016 incendiary speech.

In November last year, he briefly quit the party a day after the establishment forced him to make an electoral alliance with the Mustafa Kamal-led Pak Sarzameen Party.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2018