KARACHI (The Thursday Times) — The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan has announced a nationwide movement for new provinces, with party chairman Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui saying a convoy will march towards Karachi’s Sharea Faisal on November 29.
Speaking to party workers at PIB Colony on Sunday, Siddiqui said urban Sindh had the strongest case for a province of its own. New provinces should be created “wherever there is a demand and a need based on population”, he said, adding that the time had come for people to take to the streets.
He claimed that all routes leading to Sharea Faisal, the city’s main artery, would be blocked once the procession set off. He also warned opponents of the demand against threatening his party, saying it was ready to confront resistance.
The announcement sets the MQM-P, a federal coalition partner, directly against the Pakistan Peoples Party, which governs Sindh. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said last week that the Sindh Assembly had put a “full stop” to calls for a new province or administrative units, and that only the people of Sindh could decide its future.
MQM-P leader Wasim Akhtar answered him directly at Sunday’s meeting, saying the crowd was made up of workers from District East alone and not the whole of Karachi. Farooq Sattar said the party’s struggle concerned all of Pakistan’s people, and that the 18th Amendment had failed to improve economic growth, education, healthcare or basic services such as garbage collection.
