February 23, 2007	Friday	Safar 5, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 22: MNA Shamim Akhtar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement on Thursday submitted her resignation to the National Assembly Speaker, Chaudhry Amir Hussain, following the party’s directive, sources in the party told Dawn.

Parliamentary leader of the MQM in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar and MNA Iqbal Mohammad Ali Khan were present in the Speaker’s chamber at the time of the submission of the resignation.

In her resignation, Ms Akhtar stated that she was resigning due to some “personal reasons.”

Informed sources told Dawn that she had informed the Speaker that her husband was ill and she wanted to look after him properly.The sources said the Rabita Committee of the MQM was not satisfied with the performance of Ms Akhtar and decided to replace her with another party activist Kishwar Sultana.

Ms Akhtar was among the three MQM woman MNAs nominated on the reserved seats from Sindh in the 2002 elections. Her name was at number three in the list of candidates, provided to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by the party in the 2002 elections and the name of Kishwar Sultana was at number four.

Kishwar Sultana, who is likely to replace Ms Akhtar, has never been elected to any legislative assembly. However, she was a member of the Rabita Committee in 1992 when a military operation was launched against the party.

Ms Akhtar was the fourth MNA of the party to be asked by the party to resign.

Earlier, the Rabita Committee had changed three MQM MNAs who had won the National Assembly seats from Karachi in the 2002 as they were unable to give sufficient time to their constituency. As per party’s decision, Sarkaruddin (NA-240), Sultan Ahmed Khan (NA-243) and Haji Azizullah Brohi (NA-246) had submitted their resignations to the National Assembly Speaker on March 15, 2004.

These MNAs were replaced through by-elections by Abid Ali Umang, Abdul Waseem and Nisar Ahmed Panhwar, respectively.