KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Sunday expressed its full confidence on Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani announcing that it would not support the no-confidence motion filed by opposition parties against him in the upper house.

MQM-P spokesperson Syed Aminul Haq told Dawn that the decision was taken at a meeting of the party’s coordination committee presided over by convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui.

About the no-confidence motion filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf against Senate’s deputy chairman Saleem Mandviwala of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Mr Haq said that his party’s senators were among the signatories of the no-confidence motion against him.

At present, the MQM-P has five senators who sit on the treasury benches in the upper house being allies of the PTI-led ruling coalition.

The party had supported Mr Sanjrani at the time of his election in March 2018. However, it did not vote for Mr Mandviwala in his election as the deputy chairman.

A statement issued by the MQM-P said that the coordination committee had decided to call “Haq Parast senators” to Karachi to form a strategy to deal with the no-confidence move against Sanjrani.

The meeting expressed its full confidence in Mr Sanjrani and decided to oppose the no-confidence move against him “at every forum”.

Over 300 join PSP

Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal has said that despite the fact that his party was not in government more people were joining it.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, he said that 327 people belonging to different political parties joined his party today and 178 of them had left MQM-Pakistan to join the PSP.

He appealed to people to participate in large numbers in the public meeting scheduled to be held on July 21 in Bagh-i-Jinnah.

He once again offered the Sindh government that he was ready to help in the completion of the K-IV water supply project within a period of three years against a symbolic salary of Re1.

Criticising the MQM-P, he said that Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui was part of the ruling coalition at the Centre but instead of forcing Prime Minister Imran Khan to release funds for K-IV his party was hanging banners in Karachi in protest over water shortage.

He said that the confidence of a common man in the government had already eroded.

He said that Imran Khan was behaving like the prime minister of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone as Sindh and Balochistan had been completely neglected by the federal government.

PSP president Anis Qaimkhani and other leaders were also present at the press conference.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2019