Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani on Wednesday welcomed the leaders of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in assembly by approving their plea filed to withdraw resignations.
While talking to media persons in the chamber of Sindh Assembly, the speaker said that the MQM leaders resigned under Article 64 of the Constitution but they retracted as the authorities accepted their demands.
He said the MQM representatives could come to assembly now. Responding to a question, Agha Siraj stated that Badin showed ecstasy on the arrival of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and welcomed him like Benazir Bhutto which was a huge victory of the party.
Earlier, the MQM members of National Assembly (NA) formally forwarded a plea for withdrawing their resignations. Khalid Maqbool Siddique and Asif Husnain could not appear because of other commitments. At least 22 MNAs, belonging to the MQM, filed the plea in the Speaker’s Chamber.
Owing to the absence of acting speaker and NA secretary, the plea was filed in the chamber.
In second week of October, MQM’s Dr Farooq Sattar said the party was ready to retract their resignations. Several MQM members including Sattar had held a meeting with federal ministers Pervaiz Rashid and Ishaq Dar in Punjab House in the federal capital.
On August 12, the party resigned from the Parliament and the Sindh Assembly for being allegedly victimised in the ongoing Karachi operation. As many as 19 reasons were formally given to the government for the extreme step.
Following the resignations, the government gave reconciliation responsibility to Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rehman who flew to Karachi for talks. The JUI-F leader played a mediator’s role between the government and MQM. However, the attack on MQM’s senior member Rashid Godil led to an end to the round of talks in Karachi.