A day after the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) decided to part ways with the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government in Sindh, Altaf Hussain’s party earlier today submitted a request in the office of Speaker Sindh Assembly Agha Siraj Durrani to allot opposition benches to its lawmakers.
The party had also announced that it was pulling out its lawmakers from the provincial cabinet with two of its ministers and three advisers tendering their resignations late last night.
In a stormy press conference in which the party announced the annulment of its alliance with the PPP, senior MQM leader Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said that PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s “persistent verbal attacks” on the Muttahida leadership and PPP’s politics of “hatred and discrimination” had made it impossible for the party to remain in the Sindh government.
Siddiqui had also criticised PPP leader Khursheed Shah’s statement that he considered Mohajir “a swear word” and said the MQM now believed that strengthening the hands of PPP was equivalent to “weakening Pakistan”.
