MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar speaks to the media outside his residence in PIB Colony, Karachi, Pakistan, February 2, 2017. Geo.tv via Geo News

 

KARACHI: The stalemate continued between the factions of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) through Friday night as neither side could agree with the other over Senate candidatures.

The Rabita Committee continued its efforts to convince the party convener Dr Farooq Sattar but the attempts remained futile.

Speaking to journalists outside his residence, Sattar described the Committee's claims as "propaganda" that he is unwilling to meet them despite repeated invitations.

He said he had no issue in holding a meeting with the members of the Rabita Committee at their Bahadurabad office.

"Writing a letter to the ECP was an inappropriate act," Sattar said, waving a copy of the letter written earlier by the Rabita Committee to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Further, he also questioned the urgency to send the letter to the ECP.

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The MQM-P convener said the committee had also nominated candidates for the Senate elections in its letter, questioning the need for him to go and hold a meeting with them then.

Sattar said the letter to the ECP demanded his right to make nominations for the Senate, the National Assembly, and the upcoming elections be revoked.

Earlier, the leader vowed he would go to meet the Rabita Committee should it choose to respond. If, however, it does not opt to do so, he noted that he would consult a smaller meeting of his party workers, ahead of a larger convention.

He said he had conveyed through a delegation that visited him earlier his suggestion to the Rabita Committee to drop all the names for the Senate candidatures and pick new ones altogether.

A three-member delegation, comprising Rauf Siddiqui, Rehan Hashmi, and Javed Hanif, visited Sattar at his PIB Colony residence on Friday. Sattar held a meeting with Siddiqui and Hashmi that lasted two hours.

Following the meeting, Siddiqui returned to the party's Bahadurabad office, without responding to any questions from the reporters.