MQM rally in Hyderabad. PHOTO: APP
Speaking at the MQM-P's rally on Sunday evening, he also criticised the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) over their goals and also obliquely disapproved MQM-London's politics.
The party's protest rally, which demanded rights for the people of Hyderabad and development of the city, started from City Gate and ended at Koh-i-Noor Roundabout, where MQM-P's leaders addressed the supporters.
"The people [PSP and MQM-London] who are doing politics of divide, God willing they will suffer from one split after another, but MQM-P's vote bank will remain intact," he assured a crowd whose figure, according to him, was around 10,000.
MQM-Pakistan is as strong as ever, claims Farooq Sattar
Apparently conscious of a participation which is uncharacteristic of the MQM's roadshow, Sattar, referring to the PSP, said they will not claim that their activity is a million march.
"The day when we decide to hold a million march ... We will show the people that our million has six zeroes and that too based on the headcount."
Sattar ridiculed the PSP's million march in Karachi, jeering that the tear gas shelling by the police helped the party save its grace. "We [Urdu-speaking people] aren't a Bombay Bakery's cake which can be distributed or Haji Rabri's sweet which can be eaten," he said, decrying the division.
"If London [MQM's self-exiled leadership, including the party's founding leader Altaf Hussain] is demonstrating senselessness, we should consider that it's also part of the agenda for the split," said Sattar.
"The chief minister of Sindh in 2018 will be ours [MQM-P] and the next government of Sindh will also be ours," he asserted to the chants of 'jeay Mohajir' (long live Mohajir). "We will prove that if we can create Pakistan [through a peaceful political struggle], we can also restore our sense of identity and self-esteem."
Taking credit for filing a petition in the Supreme Court regarding the census in Sindh, Sattar said the litigation will ensure that the population of MQM-dominated urban areas in Sindh is higher than the rural one.
MQM-Pakistan out with 13-page ‘white paper’ against PPP
Sattar, whose party has been commemorating September 30, 1988, killings of around 250 people and alleged ethnic attacks for almost three decades, called for the judicial commission to probe the matter. The demand came in reaction to May 17 order of the Sindh High Court which upheld a 2003 judgment of a trial court which had acquitted 41 accused persons, including Sindh Taraqi Pasand party's chief Dr Qadir Magsi.
Taking PPP’s provincial government to task, the MQM-P leader said that they had deprived the urban Sindh of its due share in the development expenditures.
"Water has become a problem for Sindh," he said, naming one district after another to reveal that the problem existed in the whole province.
"Hyderabad and Karachi are provided funds in crores [tens of millions of rupees]. But the PPP's government spent and embezzled Rs90 billion in Larkana alone," said MNA Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqi, MQM-P's deputy convener, blaming PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari as the main character behind Sindh government's alleged corruption.
He warned that if the injustice toward the urban Sindh in the budgetary allocations is not stopped, his party's supporters will stop paying taxes. "What was earlier a part of Hindustan became Pakistan when Mohajirs set their foot on the land in 1947 ... Do we have to beg for our rights from the people whom we liberated from India?" he questioned.
Siddiqui declared that Hyderabad's rally is the first warning to the provincial government, adding that his party will give a second warning before attempting to snatch their rights.
The party's Rabita Committee members and local leaders also addressed the participants.
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