KARACHI Feb 09 (TNS): While Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan leader Dr Farooq Sattar had announced he would visit the party headquarters in Bahadurabad later today, the party’s Rabita Committee (RC) has in the meantime written to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) informing the commission that the authority to issue party tickets rests with the RC not Sattar.
The letter states that according to the party constitution section 19(a) the authority to nominate candidates for election rests with the Rabita Committee.
It further adds that the RC had in its session finalized the names of candidates for the Senate of Pakistan elections.
Finally, the letter informs the ECP that the authority to write letters to the commission with regards to candidates rests with Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and if the power to issue tickets to candidates rested with any individual that power stands withdrawn.
Earlier, speaking to the press outside his residence in the afternoon, Sattar said that he will chair a Rabita Committee session for the party’s Senate nominees at 7pm tonight.
“If a leader is responsible for taking ahead the party, he should also be given authority,” Sattar said, adding that, “This can’t happen that all failures are due to the leader, while he has got no authority.”
A party meeting, held late Monday, ended in chaos as Sattar and Amir Khan disagreed over the nomination of Kamran Tessori as MQM-P’s candidate for Senate. Following the disagreement, Sattar and his supporters left the Bahadurabad venue for his residence in PIB Colony amid chants in the party chief’s favour.
Negotiations between both camps yielded no breakthrough as party leaders opted for expressing their grievances openly through separate press conferences today.
Both factions of the party have also submitted separate nomination papers of their candidates while maintaining that a number of nominated candidates will be withdrawn after reaching a breakthrough on the issue.
