ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader has filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to remove him as party convener.
In the petition, Sattar maintains that he was ‘illegally’ removed as party head on February 11 by members of MQM-P’s Central Coordination Committee (CCC). “The said illegal removal was confirmed by the learned ECP in its March 26 order,” the petition read. The petition also narrates the entire intra-party rift, the intra-party elections and how they were suspended, the instances in which the CCC refused to cooperate with Sattar. The petition also addresses the issue of Senate tickets of the MQM-P and their distribution among members.
Ruling in favour of Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, the ECP on Monday had removed Dr Farooq Sattar as convener of the MQM-P.The ECP ruled on petitions filed against Sattar in the wake of a rift within the party over the nomination of Kamran Tessori for a Senate seat. This controversy over Tessori practically divided the party into Sattar-led PIB group and Siddiqui-led Bahadurabad group.
The Bahadurabad faction later filed petitions in the ECP, seeking removal of Sattar as convener with the argument that the party’s Rabita Committee had replaced him with Siddiqui by a two-thirds majority. It also challenged the February 18 intra-party polls which Sattar had won by a heavy margin.In his reply to the petitions, Sattar had challenged the ECP jurisdiction in intra-party matters and asked it to dismiss the petitions filed against him.
Meanwhile, MQM-P’s Bahadurabad faction representative Faisal Subzwari on Wednesday offered the PIB faction’s leader Dr Farooq Sattar to nominate 40 percent members of the new Joint Rabita Committee in a bid to resolve the intra-party conflict. Responding to the offer, Sattar demanded that the share of hisnominated members should be extended to 50 percent.Subzwari expressed his desire to meet the party’s PIB chief at his residence along with a delegation of the Bahadurabad group members. Sattar, however, declined the request and insisted that the meeting will be possible only after the agreement between both factions on ‘negotiation formula’. Later speaking to a private TV channel, Subzwari said the Bahadurabad group has not yet agreed on any formula with Dr Sattar. He also confirmed that the PIB group’s leader had declined his request for a visit to his residence.
Published in Daily Times, March 29th 2018.
