Farooq Sattar calls meeting of party MPAs over Senate elections

Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan’s (MQM-P) PIB faction chief Farooq Sattar has called the party's Sindh Assembly members to his PIB office on Friday to discuss the upcoming Senate elections.

Sattar made the announcement during a meeting in Islamabad with the party's National Assembly members in the wee hours of Friday, local media reported. He also instructed them to remain in the capital to cast their votes for Senate elections.

Farooq Sattar challenges ECP’s jurisdiction in convener-ship

MQM-P has split into two factions after there was an argument regarding the candidates for the Senate elections. The two factions - PIB faction led by Sattar and Bahadurabad faction which has elected Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui as their chief, still seems to remain at par as the Senate elections are to be held tomorrow (March 3).

The Rabita Committee had denominated Sattar as the MQM-P convener and had elected Siddique instead. Sattar in turn held intra-party elections in which he won. The rival faction challenged the intra-party elections and took the matter over to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

When the ECP summoned Sattar, he challenged the ECP's jurisdiction and saidnthat it had no right to make decisions regarding his party and should let the issue be resolved as per the party’s constitution. He also offered Siddique an intra-party election for the convener-ship in a bid to unify the party and evade the ECP intervention.