KARACHI: Dr Farooq Sattar, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan leader — who many believed saved the party following its London-based founder Altaf Hussain’s Aug 22, 2016 incendiary speech — was finally shown the door by the party’s coordination committee, better known as the Bahadurabad group, on Friday.

A brief statement issued from the MQM-P’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad said that the coordination committee in its meeting on Friday “decided to revoke basic membership of Dr Farooq Sattar on charges of violating party discipline and constitution, internal grouping and other serious organisational issues”.

It said the decision was “unanimously” taken by the participants of the meeting, chaired by convener and federal minister Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui.

The committee directed all workers not to contact Dr Sattar; otherwise strict action would be taken against them.

The move, however, drew mixed reaction from within the MQM-P ranks as party’s former MNA Ali Raza Abidi tweeted: “Wrong move! Now many leaders and workers who are standing in support with @DFSMQM will start submitting their resignations.”

In another tweet, he stated: “Now it appears that Farooq bhai made the biggest mistake of saving the party on 23rd August 2016. He should have just let the natural course take place and let every worker and leader on ground be taken into custody.”

In a late-night press conference at his PIB Colony residence, Dr Sattar rejected what he called the so-called decision of the coordination committee and said his only crime was to demand for workers’ democratic right.

“The decision of the coordination committee is illegal and unconstitutional,” he said, adding that such an extreme action could not be taken without hearing his viewpoint.

Last month, Dr Sattar had announced the formation of a 22-member ‘organisation restoration committee’. He called upon the Bahadurabad group to hold an intra-party election. He had recently visited Hyderabad where a large number of workers welcomed him. Differences between the two factions of the MQM-P had emerged on Feb 5 when Dr Sattar left a coordination committee meeting after the latter refused to give party ticket to contest Senate elections to his close aide Kamran Tessori.

Later, the MQM-P split into the PIB and Bahadurabad groups and resultantly lost three Senate seats.

Before the July 25 general elections, the two groups reconciled, but failed to retain majority of their national and provincial assembly seats.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2018