KARACHI: As police seal off Mohajir Qaumi Movement offices and raid its leaders’ homes, the party is facing up to a political crisis that has seen it fall victim to the ‘numbers game’.

Leaders of the MQM, which has a single vote in the Sindh Assembly, have been driven deep underground. “We are the victim of the numbers game in the National Assembly,” said Younus Khan, the sole member-elect of the Sindh Assembly, who claims the group has been sold down the river for the 17 NA seats held by deadly rivals the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

The MQM faction split from the Muttahida (then the Mohajir Qaumi Movement) in 1992, and after a long struggle with the main group, settled in eastern Karachi. Establishing a head office in Landhi, home of its chairman Afaq Ahmed, it strengthened its control of adjoining areas, Korangi, Malir and Shah Faisal Colony, the Lines Area and parts of Liaquatabad.

Muttahida claims MQM’s rise was for a decade backed by the army and establishment. The situation for MQM first changed on November 10, when police began raids on party activists homes and cordoned off its head office the first of two times

Muttahida pressed Islamabad to eliminate MQM-controlled ‘no-go areas’, a condition which the Muttahida set for its support of the PML-Q government in Islamabad.

Operations intensified as the first session of the National Assembly approached. Police sealed off the MQM head office before the Assembly session.

Muttahida activists later entered MQM-controlled areas under the protection of the law-enforcement agencies, opening its offices and relocating its workers’ families into the areas, following their enforced departure in 1992.

MQM workers resisted, clashing with Muttahida activists while women MQM supporters demonstrated in front of the Governor’s House. One MQM worker was killed, and the Muttahida was blamed. .

Meanwhile, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement reached a deadlock in efforts to form the government in Sindh. On November 27 it withdrew support for the government of Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali, complaining it had failed to eliminate the no-go areas.

The government reacted immediately, sending rangers into MQM areas, and raiding the houses of leading party workers.

“We do not have the numbers in the National Assembly to blackmail the government,” said MPA Younus Khan.

He claimed he was optimistic that the situation would change after the formation of the Sindh Assembly. The crisis would bolster its vote bank in parts of Landhi and Shah Faisal Colony, where the Muttahida is now “an alienated party”, he said, adding that the “status quo cannot prevail for long”, and Mohajir Qaumi Movement would have to be allowed to campaign in it voting strongholds.