After years of differences, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) Chairman Mustafa Kamal and Muttahida Qaumi Movement Restoration Committee Chief Dr Farooq Sattar have joined the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Thursday.

After developing differences with the party, Kamal established the PSP in 2016 and Sattar formed the MQM-P Bahali Committee in 2018.

MQM-P Convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, addressing a press conference alongside the top brass of the party, said the “graveness” of the situation in Sindh’s urban areas requires all people to join hands

Siddiqui said: “It is important that under the circumstances, the people, whose families laid down their lives for Pakistan’s formations, should come together for a historic struggle.

The MQM-P leader said that the elements who wished to divide the nation are disappointed and vowed that the rejuvenated MQM-P would live up to the dreams of the masses and strive for urban cities’ development.

“I welcome you all — Kamal, Sattar, and their aides. I hope that all of you will strive for the nation,” the former federal minister for information and technology added.

In response to a question from a journalist, the MQM-P convener asserted that the party would not allow the staging of the upcoming local body polls — a move that will invite criticism from opposing parties.

“If they redo the delimitation again, we are ready to participate in the local body polls. If it is not fixed, then we will fight for our rights,” Siddiqui warned.

‘Important day’

Speaking on the occasion, Kamal said this day will be remembered in history as an “important day” as certain decisions would be taken today that are “unthinkable”.

“If we [the MQM-P leaders] talk about ourselves, then we have taken such unthinkable decisions in the past as well, which were beyond people’s comprehension,” he said, recalling that when he left MQM founder Altaf Hussain on August 14, 2013, he was a senator and the member of the Rabta committee.

He clarified that he had no personal differences with Hussain and that the decision to leave the party was completely based on political differences.

Walking the journalists down the events that took place in the past, Kamal recalled that in October 2013, then-member of the Rabta committee Anees Qaimkhani left Hussain’s party, and for three years both leaders remained silent.

“On March 3, 2016, we [Kamal and Qaimkhani] came to Karachi and bluntly spoke the truth, which was once again in the wider interest of the Muhajir cause,” he said.

Kamal said the decision taken on March 3 — the date when he formed his party — was for the people and nation.

‘If Muhajirs suffer same will be the fate of others’

Lambasting the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), the former senator said: “We did not remove the label of Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) from Karachi so that [PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali] Zardari can consider the metropolitan as his fiefdom.”

He further added that the former president wants to make his son, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the next prime minister, while the people of Karachi and Hyderabad continue to suffer due to a lack of employment opportunities and basic facilities like the absence of clean drinking water, electricity, etc.