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MQM proposes coalition committees to form strategy

* Altaf urges PML-Q to avoid war of words with PPP
* PM, Shujaat, Sindh CM agree with proposals

By Irfan Ali

KARACHI: Federal and provincial committees should be formed to do the ruling coalition’s homework on its future course of action, proposed MQM Chief Altaf Hussain to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain over the telephone when they visited Nine-Zero, the party’s headquarters Saturday.

The committees, if formed, will have members from the MQM and the ruling PML. According to an MQM spokesman, the PM, Shujaat and Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim agreed to the proposal.

Daily Times asked an MQM office bearer about the party’s position on electoral adjustments with the ruling PML. “As a matter of fact, we are still part of the ruling coalition,” he said. “As far as the elections are concerned, you know we never formed an electoral alliance with any party.”

Although neither side has admitted to differences, the proposal for committees is considered evidence as a similar proposal was made to sort of differences between the MQM and the PML-Q. National Reconciliation: Altaf Hussain urged the PML chief to desist from a war of words against the Pakistan Peoples Party and its chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

“You should demonstrate restraint and patience for the success of the national reconciliation process,” he said over the phone from London. “You should ignore the PPP’s statements against you,” Shujaat quoted Hussain as proposing to him. Talking to journalists, the PML chief said he told the MQM chief that he had agreed with his view and that he and his PML welcomed Bhutto’s return. “Yesterday, I had said, ‘let us bury what happened and start a new chapter’. Whoever wins the elections should be garlanded and whoever loses should have a rest,” he said.

He said he had also agreed to talks with PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif but Sharif’s party members had misread his offer and made tall claims that now the ruling PML looks towards them out of a fear of Bhutto. Shujaat expressed dismay over what he said was a negative response to his goodwill gestures. Electoral strategy: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that he and the PML chief visited Karachi to talk to the parties of the ruling coalition about a future course of action. “We want the ruling coalition to contest the forthcoming elections with solidarity,” he told reporters. He expressed the hope that people would elect the PML because of its performance and it would form the next government. “People know who performed well and who plundered the exchequer,” he remarked.

The PM and the PML chief informed the MQM chief about their conversations with PML-Functional chief Pir Pagaro that had taken place earlier in the day at Kingri House.

Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, who is also the provincial president of the PML, told Altaf Hussain that he agreed that restraint was needed but that the PPP’s political statements needed political replies. “We have to respond to their political statements. Let us do this job, otherwise the PPP and its chairperson will take us on,” he said. He added that the Sindh government had provided her full security in Karachi and also in Larkana. Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad accompanied the PM. Shaikh Liaquat of the MQM’s Rabita Committee, Anwar Alam, Abdul Haseeb, and many other members received them at Nine-Zero. Alam told reporters that the meeting lasted for half an hour.

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