KARACHI: Seventeen mon­ths after showing the door to the party’s London-based founder, a Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan group enjoying support of a majority of coordination (Rabita) committee members removed their party head, Dr Farooq Sattar, and appointed MNA Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui in his place as the new convener on Sunday.

However, Dr Sattar struck back by dissolving the coordination committee and announced holding intra-party elections on Feb 17.

The Amir Khan-led group, publicly known as Bahadurabad camp, implemented the notorious minus-one formula after Dr Sattar refused to accept any of the four names finalised by the coordination committee for the March 3 Senate election and change the decision of holding a workers’ convention amid speculations that he might oust his opponents.

After the announcement of Dr Sattar’s removal at a press conference outside the Bahadurabad headquarters in the evening, a meeting of the party’s coordination committee and all attached wings was held in which “more than 30 members of the coordination committee elected with consensus” Dr Siddiqui as the new party head, said a statement.

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Senior leader Kanwar Naveed Jameel levelled serious allegations against Dr Sattar and announced that he would remain a worker since the party removed him from the post of convener.

Undeterred with his opponents’ action, Dr Sattar told the media outside his PIB Colony residence that the coordination committee laid the foundation of “Haqiqi 2” — a reference to his nemesis Amir Khan’s former association with the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi.

He then moved to the KMC Stadium in PIB Colony, where a good number of MQM workers, including women, were present to attend the “emergency general workers’ meeting”. At the convention, when Dr Sattar asked the participants through a resolution if they would endorse the coordination committee decision of his removal, the workers replied in the negative.

He then asked them to raise hands to allow him to dissolve the coordination committee and hold intra-party elections to get new members and other office-bearers elected. As all those present unanimously gave him the power to do so, Dr Sattar announced that the intra-party election would be held at same venue on Feb 17.

A confident Dr Sattar told the meeting that he enjoyed support of more MPAs and MNAs than his rivals.

Earlier during the day, the Bahadurabad camp’s moral boosted when the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) accepted the coordination committee decision through which it had empowered Dr Siddiqui to issue tickets to party candidates for the Senate election.

Dr Sattar reached the ECP office in a bid to convince officials that Dr Siddiqui had no right to issue tickets in his presence. But the officials concerned did not accept his point of view and advised him not to sort out their differences at the ECP.

Later, Mr Jamil accompanied by other coordination committee members read out a list of allegations against Dr Sattar including his alleged negligence that resulted in the suspension of party’s registration with the ECP, made the Khidmat-i-Khalq Foundation and Nazeer Hussain University dysfunctional and for a botched attempt to amend the party constitution for getting unprecedented powers.

He said Dr Sattar promoted his “friend” Kamran Tessori after he joined the MQM despite the reservation expressed by every member of the party. He said that the coordination committee tried its best to resolve the issue requesting Dr Sattar to nominate senators for the sake of unity, yet he refused to remove Mr Tessori from the list of nominees.

Mr Jamil then announced that Dr Sattar did not hold party office anymore but would continue to work as an MQM-P worker.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2018