HYDERABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) coordination committee convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui has said that his party will hold talks at an appropriate time with other political parties and different communities on creation of new administrative units in the country. He said the demand would emerge as a “matter of life and death” for the MQM-P in the 2018 election campaign.

He was speaking at a reception hosted for party leaders at Station Road late on Friday evening. Abdul Haseeb, Masood Mahmood, Zafar Siddiqui, Naveed Abbasi and Rashid Khan also spoke.

Dr Siddiqui said that if someone was stripped of his ‘authority’ on Aug 22, 2016, it was not to be delegated to someone else. The one having a sense of responsibility would have the authority, he added.

He argued that change of faces did not mean MQM-P was divided. He said the post of convener was not for anyone for whole of his life; only workers would take a decision about it.

The MQM-P leader said that Mohajirs had raised the slogan of Pakistan and created the country; if they would raise the slogan of a province, they wou­ld create it. “We don’t want division of Sindh or Pakis­tan on lingual basis,” he added.

Dr Siddiqui said that Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) having 14 MPAs of the was a “funeral” of democracy, and wondered that the party had never contested an election yet it had 14 lawmakers.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2018