Limits to reconciliation: Zulfiqar Mirza dares PPP to pass bill pleasing MQM in assembly

Firebrand leader’s resignation accepted from house as protest held against him in Saddar.

KARACHI:

Controversial Pakistan Peoples Party leader Zulfiqar Mirza re-ignited political tension in the city on Monday by vowing that he would not abandon Karachi and would take the fight for Sindh to the streets.

He also put forward a challenge to his own party: Try and have the new local bodies bill passed in the Sindh Assembly. Incidentally, he threw down the gauntlet just as his resignation was accepted from the house, effectively stripping him of his MPA status. He insisted, nonetheless, that PPP MPAs were behind him on the bill.

(Read: One more diatribe: Mirza lashes out at PPP-MQM coalition)

This time, Mirza chose Kingri House, the residence of Pakistan Muslim League-Functional leader Pir Pagara, as the setting for his latest diatribe. He went there to meet Pagara along with four PPP MPAs. “I have the whole country with me. Let them know that I will sleep in my home. Come and get me if you can,” he said in an apparent reference to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

The PPP was quick to once again distance itself from these statements. “The PPP does not own Mirza’s statements,” Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Khuhro said while telling the media that he had accepted Mirza’s August 28 resignation from his parliamentary seat. PPP sources said, however, that Mirza’s party membership was still intact.

For the MQM, senior leader Waseem Akhter said that the government must take action against Mirza before his statements and behaviour result in violence on the streets. “The way guns were exhibited on Sunday is not hidden from anyone. He violated all rules and norms,” he said.

At his residence, Pir Pagara decided not to speak to the media along with Mirza, a possible sign that some politicians are distancing themselves from President Zardari’s one-time good friend and the husband of National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza. PML-F spokesman Imtiaz Shaikh said that Mirza’s meeting with Pir Pagara was a matter of routine. “Everyone comes to see Pir Sahib, even the opposition leaders. So I wouldn’t attach too much importance to it.” He said that Pir Pagara would have probably asked Mirza to improve his behaviour. “The PML-F is in continuous contact with the MQM. We haven’t ended our ties with them at all.”

LG system

Mirza revealed some elements of his motivations at his dinner reception for the media Monday night. “BB [Benazir Bhutto] too directed that one should follow the policy of reconciliation and try to take along all political parties, but at the same time she also urged [us] to draw the line somewhere.”

It seems that Mirza is drawing the line on the local government system which the MQM wants in place. Sindh Assembly members are mulling options on how to reinstate the system instead of the commissionerate that the PPP has backed otherwise. “We will not let anyone pass the bill [seeking to annul the commissioner system],” said Mirza at Pir Pagara’s house. “Leaders of the PML-F, PML-Q and those who eat what they harvest from Sindh’s soil, are with me.”

Mirza said that some PPP parliamentarians were supporting him on the issue. These PPP MPAs include Imran Zafar Leghari, Imdad Ali Pitafi, Fiaz Butt and Nasarullah Baloch. “I am confident that no one in the Sindh Assembly will support such a bill.”

Violence

Mirza continued to be outspoken about the evidence he had on who was behind the violence in Karachi. At his dinner, Mirza said that he would appear before the Sindh High Court on October 24 to record his views about the killing fields in Karachi. He was referring to the monitoring committee assigned by the Supreme Court to see whether its verdict on the suo motu case into Karachi’s target killings was being implemented in full.

Protest

Just as Speaker Nisar Khuhro accepted Mirza’s resignation, closing the door on his possible return to the government fold, coincidentally hundreds of people gathered at the Karachi Press Club with colourfully photoshopped placards of Zulfiqar Mirza.

The protest was held under the banner of the Ahliane Karachi (Representatives of Karachi). But Mirza called the protesters ‘chickens and rats.’ “Previously, the very same people had held the same protest against me under the banner of Mohajir Ittehad. These cowards don’t have the guts to come out and say openly that they belong to the MQM,” he scoffed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2011.