ISLAMABAD, Sept 12: A two-member delegation of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), led by Deputy Convener Aftab Shaikh, met the ambassadors and a high commissioner of European Union member states, here on Thursday.

The discussion during the hour-long meeting with the ambassadors of Belgium, Italy, Denmark and other EU states and British High Commissioner focused on the coming elections, Shaikh later told Dawn.

Another MQM Deputy Convener, Nasreen Jalil, was the other member of the delegation.

The ambassadors of the EU member states, he said, asked questions about lingering doubts over the holding of elections on Oct 10.

He said they also asked questions about the MQM position in the coming elections and the fate of other political forces contesting from urban and rural areas of Sindh.

Shaikh told the EU envoys that the MQM would repeat its past electoral performance in Karachi as well as other urban centres of Sindh. He said in the previous elections MQM had routed other political parties, particularly the religious parties, in urban Sindh.

He claimed that the MQM would bag at least 17 seats of the National Assembly from Karachi alone and a total of 40 to 45 Sindh Assembly seats from the province.

Religious parties, particularly those having sectarian and extremist agenda, had very little or no following among the masses, Shaikh told the EU envoys.