MQM hope for million-man rally

‘PML-N is giving MQM a free hand in the province for the time being.’

LAHORE:

The Mutahida Qaumi Movement expects around a million supporters from across the province at its April 10 meeting at Gaddafi Stadium Complex, the MQM’s media in charge in the province Faisal Dar told The Express Tribune on Tuesday.

Dar said last year more than 55,000 people from Lahore alone had attended the MQM conventions. He said after the huge shows put up in three cities of the province last year, the party was convinced that it could soon establish a support base in the province and had decided to scale up its membership drive.

He said the provincial government was extending its cooperation.

Sources in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said they were keeping a close watch on MQM’s membership drive in the province. However, they said, the PML-N had decided to give the MQM a free hand for the time being. They said the PML-N believed the April 10 event would expose the MQM’s claims of popular support once the party was unable to attract a fraction of the numbers it was claiming would attend the event.

Speaking to The Tribune on condition of anonymity, some MQM workers based in the province said that the party was making sure that it got support of some influential people in every constituency. The MQM, they said, had made it a point to register people with reputation for highhandedness, particularly in the southern districts of the province. They said such elements were seen as a critical asset in electoral politics and their support was important if MQM wanted to establish itself in the province. They said wherever the prominent people in the Mohajir community refused to support the MQM, the party leaders approached men from their rival groups and registered them in the party.

They also said that the party MNAs and MPAs were regularly visiting major cities of the province to introduce its local leaders to important government functionaries including the district coordination officers and the district police officers.

However, MQM’s media in charge Faisal Dar categorically rejected the notions. He said that the MQM was giving membership to doctors, lawyers, businessmen and students. He said the party had ensured that all sects and religious groups were given membership in the province.

During former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi’s tenure, the MQM was not allowed hold public meetings in the province.

According to the MQM organisers’ office, the party has divided the province into five zones with headquarters at Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Multan. The gathering Stabilising Pakistan at Gaddafi Stadium would be MQM’s third such rally in the province. Earlier, it had held rallies in 1994 and in 2010.

MQM chief Altaf Hussain had in the last year’s telephonic address to Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi appealed to the business community, industrialists, transporters’ associations and farmers to support MQM in establishing itself in the province.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2011.