Support swap: MQM, PML-Q agree on strategic alliance

MQM will support PML-Q in Sindh while the former will get support in Punjab.

KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q) have agreed to support each other in their respective power bases – Sindh and Punjab – in a bid to bolster strategic relations between the two parties.

MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar said this while addressing a joint news conference with PML-Q leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mushahid Hussain Sayed at his party’s headquarters in Karachi on Friday.

“The leadership of the two parties has reached a general agreement to steer the country out of socio-economic problems,” said Dr Sattar. The MQM and the PML-Q enjoy cordial relations with each other, said Sattar, adding that they have shared a nine-point agenda with the PML-Q which has expressed its endorsement in this regard.

Sayed said their party has decided to resolve issues of public interest with the help of MQM and have shared their five-point agenda with the party. The agenda includes addressing terrorism, volatile law and order situation and electricity and gas shortages in the country, he added.

The PML-Q delegation was led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain while the MQM was represented by Dr Farooq Sattar, Wasim Aftab, Nasrin Jalil, Babar Ghouri, Haider Abbas Rizvi and others.

Economic growth is impossible until there is peace in Karachi and Sindh because they are economic hubs of the country, said Sayed later while addressing the newly elected cabinet of the Karachi Press Club. However, given the volatile law and order situation in Karachi, kidnapping for ransom is the only growing business in the city, he said. He criticised the federal interior minister and the provincial home minister for pointing fingers at each other for Karachi’s operation, saying if the ministers were not aware of the operation, who is running the government?

Meanwhile, Chaudhry Shujaat prevaricated when asked about the reasons for a clean-up operation in Karachi in 1992 during his tenure as interior minister, saying he has written a book on the issue which will be published soon. Operations were conducted to put down political opposition back then and the same is the practice now, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2011.