KARACHI: Another provincial lawmaker belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan left his party and joined the Pak Sarzameen Party on Monday — a move described by MQM-P chief Dr Farooq Sattar as an act of “buying” his party members.

Nadeem Razi, the Sindh Assembly member elected from a Malir constituency (PS-121) in the 2013 general election, also announced that he would resign his PA seat.

It took the PSP over five months to poach one more MQM lawmaker since the last MPA, Irtiza Farooqi, had joined the PSP in April.

Following the creation of the PSP and the March 3, 2016 return of former Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal, nine lawmakers — eight MPAs and one member of the National Assembly — have quit their parties and joined the PSP. One of the nine lawmakers — Hafeezuddin — was associated with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

PSP ‘giving packages to buy MQM-Pakistan people’

Mr Razi announced joining the PSP at a press conference held at the party’s headquarters in the PECHS area. He was accompanied by Mr Kamal, PSP president Anis Kaimkhani and other leaders.

He alleged that the leadership of the MQM-P was deceiving its workers and supporters.

He said the MQM-P leaders were taking a different position behind closed doors but in front of the masses they adopted a different line. “Even today, the MQM is still the party of Altaf Hussain,” he added.

Mr Kamal welcomed Mr Razi to his party and invited “other people”, apparently his former colleagues in the MQM, to listen to the “call of their conscience” and join the PSP.

The PSP chief claimed that thousands of people were joining his party. He was critical of those who were still part of the MQM-Pakistan.

He said there had been no change in his stance since his return to active politics and it was because of his efforts that the “Mohajir nation” had closed the chapter of the MQM founder.

Mr Kamal also rejected the provisional results of the population census and said that Karachi’s population would increase to 30 million by 2020, but the current census results put its population at a mere 14m.

Meanwhile, commenting on the defection, MQM-P chief Dr Farooq Sattar alleged that the PSP was “giving packages to buy MQM-Pakistan people”.

Speaking at a two-day carnival organised by the students’ wing of his party at the Federal Urdu Science University, he told those who were claiming to have taken “MQM-P’s wickets” that his party would have a thousand more such people in the upcoming elections.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2017