MQM-P Bahadurabad chooses Amir Khan over Farooq Sattar

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (Bahadurabad) has rejected the party’s PIB group leader Farooq Sattar’s demand for removing Amir Khan from the party if they wanted him to work together.

Sattar held a press conference late on Sunday night in which he expressed his willingness to end the split on the condition that Bahadurabad remove its senior deputy convener Khan from the party.

He said, “The March 11 [2015] raid on the MQM headquarters Nine Zero was abetted by Khan as confirmed to me by many workers. He is also responsible for June 19, 1992 killings. Khan is a conspirator. Now it is up to the Bahadurabad to decide whom to choose because I cannot work alongside him.”

The press conference was made the night after Pakistan Muslim League-N president and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif called on MQM-P Bahadurabad leaders at their office, and the terms of their “possible” coalition in the General Election 2018 were believed to have been discussed.

He said some “ignorant” friends in Bahadurabad rejected the mediators’ formula of reconciliation that they dissolved both the coordination committees to make a new one having “balance of power”. “Yet, I don’t insist on dissolving the Bahadurabad committee. I am willing to work with them. But they should decide and tell who is the leader, Khan or me,” Sattar said, claiming that Khan, exhibiting a negative behaviour, would confront him and put hurdles in his way, be it his suggestion or decision.

The split in MQM-P publicly surfaced on February 5 over the nomination of party candidates in the Senate election. Apparently as a result, the party failed to maintain its position of being the fourth largest party in the upper house of the parliament as its seats reduced from eight to five. Meanwhile, it lost a dozen of its lawmakers – 11 to the Pak Sarzameen Party and one to the Pakistan Peoples Party -- besides other office-bearers and workers.

He said that on the eve of the short-lived merger with the PSP, he had told the coordination committee to make Khan the leader of the party because he was quitting politics but they persuaded him [Sattar] to return to the office.

He alleged that Khan was the reason behind the “split after split” in the party and most of workers had distanced themselves from the party because of him. He also called Khan the inventor of “Muhajir murderer and Muhajir victim” politics and said that the families of the party’s “martyrs” had forgiven him only because of Altaf Hussain.

He added that Khan was also involved in illegally obtaining contracts from the Karachi Municipal Corporation and district municipal corporations and was getting his blue-eyed people assigned key responsibilities within the party and in the local bodies.

“What kind of a leader I am when I cannot even expel criminal elements form the party?” he questioned, adding that he did not want such leadership where there was no respect. “Khan had time and again insisted on expelling Ali Raza Abidi from the party and Kamal Malik was removed because of him. He also conspired in Salman Mujahid Baloch’s case.”

He said that he could work with the rest of the coordination committee but not with a person who was a conspirator. He said that he did not want to run the party from PIB Colony nor the division but wanted the leadership of a party that had no space from criminal elements.

Mentioning the case over the party leadership pending with the Islamabad High Court, he said that whatever the decision he still had a trump card on him that could change the game. “Bahadurabad has nothing on me. Now is the time that they decide and don’t force me to resort to character assassination.”

Sattar said that he wanted to talk to the chief justice of Pakistan, the chief of army staff and the Inter-Services Intelligence director-general over the apparent political reengineering in Karachi and other urban centres in Sindh. “All of a sudden, my Bahadurabad friends turned against me. Isn’t there a conspiracy behind it?”

He said that he eyed the state security and judicial institutions with respect but it seemed that there were bids being made to minus the MQM-P from the political stream. “If such a thing happened, then it would be a big injustice.”

On the party’s constitutional infight, he said, “No one ever raised it when the MQM founder was behind the wheel.” He said that split was not caused because of Kamran Tessori, yet he was suspended for six months.

He also criticised PML-N leader Shahbaz Sharif, asking since when he started caring about Karachi and if he really did then he should give the city’s control into the hands of the local persons.

Bahadurabad issued a statement in response to Sattar’s press conference. They said that after the August 23, 2016, the coordination committee headed by him had appointed Khan as the senior deputy convener. They said that Sattar knew whose decision it was to take Khan back into the party in 2011 and he was present in the meeting that took place before this happened.

They said that the August 23 decision was consented to by the whole party and if it were of Sattar only then would the party have stood beside him on February 5. They added that Sattar was trying to absolve himself from responsibility by putting the March 11 raid on Khan. “Why did he keep silent for three years?” the statement read.

They said that the party, letting bygones be bygone, was moving ahead and Khan had been doing well since his rejoining and then appointment as senior deputy convener. They said that Sattar was asked again and again to return and resume as the party leader, but he always made excuses. “Workers are closely examining the situation and they would not let anyone harm the party’s solidarity and principles,” the statement added.