HYDERABAD, July 8: Supporters and opponents of Senator Ghaffar Qureshi of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League staged demonstrations outside the press club on Sunday and raised slogans against each other which led to exchange of hot words and scuffle.

The supporters of Mr Qureshi who is political adviser to the chief minister accused the dissidents of extortion and raised slogans in favour of district president of the party, Mir Sher Mohammad Talpur, and General Secretary Qari Mushtaq Farooqui whose very nomination by Mr Qureshi had led to cracks in the party.

Led by Iqbal Khan, Ayoub Shaikh, Mansoor and Shakeel Rajput, the pro-Qureshi group praised the senator for strengthening the party while the dissidents led by S. M. Ilyas accused the senator and the district leadership of weakening it.

In the meanwhile, five party organisers of Latifabad, Qadeer Khanzada, Ahmed Haider, Jameel Abbasi, Syed Shahid Ali and Maqbool Alam, joined the dissident group. They attacked the district leadership at a press conference and said that 113 party members’ joining the PML-F on just one day was proof of their incompetence.

They announced that they would launch a movement for their removal and said that party was deep in crisis but neither the central nor the provincial leadership had taken any notice of the widening divide and the fact that thousands of workers had become totally disillusioned with the party.

They demanded that the chief minister who was also provincial president of the party should dismiss the district leadership and appoint new office-bearers picked from among the senior leaders. They would announce their future course of action at the workers convention scheduled for July 13, they said.

The exodus from the ruling party started with the resignation of a committed leader, S. M. Ilyas, along with his friends and followers including Mehboob Junejo and Gudu Qambrani.

Lately, some saner elements within the party led by the party’s women wing leader, Ms Manzar Rawal, persuaded S. M. Ilyas and his followers to withdraw resignations.

But it could not stop the dissidents from starting a movement against Mr Qureshi and the district leadership. They are holding demonstrations and hunger strikes outside the press club almost on a daily basis.

On Friday, 113 members of the dissident group resigned from the party and joined PML-F which is gaining ground not only in Hyderabad but also in the adjoining districts.