Thaindian News

Islamabad, June 7 (IANS) Pakistan’s Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), which primarily represents the Urdu-speaking people, will contest the next assembly elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a media report said.

“The MQM is determined to uproot the feudal mentality and corrupt politics from Pakistan and bring about justice and equality for the poor and oppressed mentality across the country. Towards this objective, the MQM will put up honest candidates from all sections in the elections for the legislative assembly of Azad Jammu and Kashmir,” party chief Altaf Hussain said, according to a report in the Urdu daily Jang Monday.

Making the announcement in London where he lives in self-imposed exile, Hussain appealed to the “right-thinking” people in Pakistan to contribute liberally to his party’s special fund for these elections.

“The MQM is a party which has never sold its party tickets and instead chosen educated and honest candidates to contest. As it prepares for the elections in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the MQM faces financial problems. It therefore appeals to all the right-thinking people in Pakistan to liberally contribute to the party’s election fund,” he said.

The second largest party in Sindh, the MQM is presently the fourth-largest party in the National Assembly. Beginning as student organisation, All Pakistan Muhajir Student Organization (APMSO), in Karachi in 1978, it transformed into the Muhajir Quami Movement in 1984 to represent the rights of migrants from India settled in Pakistan’s commercial capital and Sindh province. It changed its name in 1997.