Farooq Sattar makes alliance proposition to MQM-Bahadurabad

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement - PIB leader Farooq Sattar on Monday extended an alliance proposition to the party's Bahadurabad faction.

The disgruntled leader, who had locked horns with the party's Rabita Committee over nominations for the Senate election earlier this year, said he was ready to withdraw his demand to dissolve the committee.

"I am ready to accept the entire Rabita Committee but my only condition is that Bahadurabad [faction] chooses between me and Amir Khan," Sattar said in a press conference in Karachi.

"Now, either I will remain a part of MQM or Amir Khan," he said. 

Late last month, in a joint press conference with Bahadurabad faction leader Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui at the party's Bahadurabad office, Sattar had said that the Bahadurabad office was the joint home of party workers despite their differences. He had added that all workers in PIB and Bahadurabad were part of MQM.

He also noted that the two groups shared an ideological bond despite their disagreements.

Khawaja Izharul Hassan excused himself from being part of an arbitration committee, following Sattar's decision to challenge the ECP's ruling on the party's convenership matter in the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The conflict

The dispute between party members over nominations for the upcoming Senate elections had earlier resulted in the emergence of splinter groups - Dr Farooq Sattar led PIB Colony faction and the Bahadurabad group consisting of Amir Khan, Nasreen Jalil, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui among others.

Sattar was elected as the PIB's faction on March 26 after securing 9,433 votes an intra-party poll he had held in Karachi and Hyderabad. He was deposed by the Rabita Committee on February 11.

Appeasement efforts by the Bahadurabad faction bore no fruition and the rift between splinter groups of the party got worse after the Bahadurabad group filed a petition challenging the intra-party elections held by Sattar.

A five-member bench of the ECP, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan, on March 26 had ruled that Sattar could no longer serve as the convener of MQM-P.

The bench also dismissed Sattar's petition challenging the jurisdiction of ECP in the case and nullified the intra-party elections of MQM, in which Sattar was elected as the party chief.

But in a dramatic turn of events, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) dismissed on Thursday the ECP's order after Sattar had challenged the order in the IHC.