KARACHI: Federal and provincial lawmakers belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) submitted their resignations to the party on Wednesday after their leader Altaf Hussain instructed them to do so.

According to party sources, Mr Hussain had serious reservations over the ongoing joint session of both houses of parliament, which he thought was being used to malign state institutions and those agitating in Islamabad against the government.

They said Mr Hussain had asked all MQM members of the National Assembly and the Senate to leave the session and return to Karachi as soon as possible. He was to address a party workers’ convention in Karachi on Wednesday, but postponed it for a day because of ‘unavoidable circumstances’.

The sources said he would consult the workers in the meeting on whether or not to quit the assemblies.

All 24 members of the National Assembly, 51 of the Sindh Assembly and seven senators belonging to the MQM had submitted their resignation, they said.

An MNA, Syed Ali Raza Abidi, shared on Twitter a photograph of his hand-written resignation letter in which he cited ‘personal reasons’ for resigning from his Karachi seat, NA-251.

An MQM statement quoted Mr Hussain as telling a TV channel that his party would not like to be the part of a ‘stagnant parliament’.

He said he would review the performance of parliament and provincial assemblies for a week and then would ask his party’s lawmakers to tender their resignations if there was no improvement.

Mr Hussain said the prime minister and parliamentarians were elected to participate in parliamentary proceedings to solve people’s problems.

He asked how many times Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had attended the parliament sessions and discussed the real issues of the people.

Referring to suffering of women, children and elders in the sit-ins of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, he said people had to bear mental torture, but no one had stepped forward to resolve the issue.

Terming the joint session of parliament ‘a drama’, he said it was an attempt to fool the nation through rhetoric.

He said there was no use of a National Assembly or Senate where members came only to show their oratorical skills but did nothing to solve people’s problems.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2014