KARACHI: Muttahida, MMA in ‘direct’ fight in NA-255
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 6: The byelection campaign in the constituency number 255 of the National Assembly has virtually been reduced to a straight fight between two candidates — in a field of 16 — since the third important candidate has not even been able to address corner meetings there.
The two candidates left in the field, and who are addressing corner meetings regularly, are Dr Farooq Sattar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Muhammad Aslam Mujahid of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal. The situation leads to a direct fight between two parties that are adversaries at the national level as well as provincial, the former being an ally of the ruling coalition and the latter being in the opposition.
The third candidate, who appears to have slowed down his campaign, belongs to Mohajir Qaumi Movement. He has slowed down his drive after claiming that his party was not being allowed access to the voters as the party activists were being persecuted on political grounds and were on the run for fear of arrest.
In a statement released to the press on Friday night, the joint candidate of Mohajir Qaumi Movement and the ARD — Abid Jafrey — criticized the government’s ‘door-breaking operation’ and said what the authorities were sewing today they would reap in the future.
He said this during his visit to Landhi’s sector no 89. According to the handout, the residents of the area had surrounded him and apprised him of the excesses allegedly perpetrated on them.
“It’s a good thing that the government’s real face has been exposed in the brief period that it has been in power,” he remarked. Mr Jafrey was of the opinion that the government’s actions had made it easy for the people to decide who represented whom.
Polling in NA-255 is scheduled for June 23. The seat fell vacant after the death of Mehmood Ahmad Qureshi of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement who was elected on the seat in the October general elections.
Aslam Mujahid, speaking at corner meetings in Landhi 4-C and 1-C, Ward-85, claimed that MQM despite getting a big mandate in Karachi had failed to deliver the goods. Its leadership was having a good time in London while the workers were incarcerating the rivals.
He said the party, after coming to power, had forgotten all about its demands against the quota system and also the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh. “The party which used to issue tickets to non-entities until recently, was forced to bring back and field Dr Farooq Sattar in the byelection, who was ignored on the eve of the national elections,” Aslam Mujahid pointed out.
Accusing the governor of campaigning for Farooq Sattar, the MMA’s candidate said Altaf Hussain’s “game was over” and the result of the byelection would not be different from that of the Rawalpindi bypolls where Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali’s visits to the constituency of Shaikh Rashid, and announcement of development projects, had failed to get the minister’s nephew elected.
Aslam Mujahid claimed that on June 23 MMA would emerge victorious after defeating ‘extortionists’ and ‘terrorists’.
Meanwhile addressing corner meetings in Landhi, Dr Farooq Sattar — the deputy convener of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s coordination committee and a candidate for NA-255 byelection — said the myth of the “terrorists” who had besieged the people of the area for more than a decade, had finally been broken. As a result, the residents were coming back into the fold of Muttahida.
He said his party’s first priority would be to ensure active participation of the people in managing their affairs, after restoring their confidence.
Taking part in the meetings in Babar Market and 3B areas, Dr Sattar said the MQM’s leader, Altaf Hussain, had dealt a serious blow to politics dominated by the feudals, who had no understanding of the problems faced by a vast majority of Pakistanis living below the poverty line.
In his meetings, Dr Sattar assured the residents that he would reactivate the institutions which had become dormant owing to what he called was the enslavement of the locality at gunpoint. He said the Moro Technical college was being opened to provide better opportunities to the people.
He expressed his satisfaction over the improvement in the law and order situation and said the fear of the terrorists was fading due to the provincial government’s good policies.
Dr Sattar claimed that after 12 years, the residents of the area were feeling free. In view of the residents’ response, he felt that Muttahida had already won the battle for hearts and minds of the area.
He said that those who had made the people suffer and created a state within a state were now on the run. Dr Sattar castigated the religious parties for misleading people in the name of Jihad and asked them to go to Iraq and not to Sweden.
He said the people would not allow religion to be exploited. He claimed that the announcement of a Rs10-billion grant for eradicating the ‘no-go areas’ had nothing to with the coming byelection.
