KARACHI: Three key candidates contesting the April 23 by-election on a National Assembly seat (NA-246) in Karachi’s Azizabad area are not resident in or even registered voters of the constituency.

There are over a dozen candidates in the run for the NA-246 by-election, but the three key candidates are fielded by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamaat-i-Islami.

It is, however, worth noting that The Representation of the Peoples Act, 1976 does not bar a Pakistani citizen from contesting election from anywhere in the country irrespective of his/her domicile.

Read: Karachi's NA-246 by-poll: A three-way contest

The MQM has fielded senior leader Kanwar Naveed Jameel as its candidate.

While Mr Jameel became a member of the provincial assembly from the same Azizabad area following the 2002 general election, he is a resident of Hyderabad and a registered voter of the city’s NA-219 constituency. His party made him the nazim of Hyderabad district in the 2005 local government elections.

In a similar way, the PTI has fielded its central leader, Imran Ismail, although he is not a registered voter of the NA-246 constituency.

Mr Ismail — who used to live in the Sindhi Muslim Society — is enrolled as a voter of the NA-251 constituency.

The third main candidate, JI’s Rashid Naseem, has contested and lost three elections on the NA-246 seats since 2002. But he is also not a registered voter or resident of the constituency.

Mr Naseem lives in North Nazimabad’s Block I and is enrolled as a voter in the NA-245 constituency.

The constituency

The part of the NA-246 constituency that includes Azizabad and where the MQM is headquartered was called NA-187 till 1997 when the city had 13 NA seats before they were increased to 20 in 2002.

The present constituency has large neighbourhoods of NA-188 in addition to parts of NA-187 including Azizabad.

The MQM won the seat thrice in the four general elections from 1988 to 1997. The party boycotted the 1993 election.

Till 1997, the constituency had different boundaries, which included Azizabad and a large portion of what is now called NA-247.

NA-187 was twice represented by slain MQM leader Dr Imran Farooq, in 1988 and 1990. His father, Farooq Ahmed, won the election in 1997.

Excluding Azizabad, the other parts of NA-246 which were part of then NA-188 were won twice by the MQM’s S.M. Aslam in 1988 and 1990 and Hasan Musanna Alvi in 1997.

In 1993, the two seats were won by Hafiz Mohammad Taqi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and JI’s Muzaffar Hashmi.

The constituency was represented by JI’s Prof Ghafoor Ahmed in the 1970 and 1977 general elections, while Usman Ramz of the same party won the 1985 general elections held on a non-party basis.

In the 2002 elections, the MQM changed its strategy in a bid to woo voters from outside urban Sindh by tagging the Azizabad seat as a symbol of harmony as it houses the residence of its self-exiled leader, Altaf Hussain.

The party fielded a candidate from Jacobabad, Azizullah Brohi, who won the seat. The MQM, however, took his resignation in 2004 and gave the ticket to another Sindhi-speaking candidate, Nisar Panhwar, in a by-election.

The MQM fielded a local resident, Sufyan Yousuf, from there in the 2008 election. However, in 2013 the party awarded the ticket to Nabil Gabol, a Baloch from Lyari, soon after he quit the Pakistan Peoples Party and joined the MQM.

His premature resignation forced the MQM to get back to basics and rely on an old guard.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2015

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