KARACHI: The Pak Sarzameen Party on Sunday staged a big show of strength with a women-only public meeting in the metropolis and announced launching its campaign for the upcoming local government elections in the province.

It was the PSP’s first women-exclusive event in Karachi’s Central district — widely considered as the last bastion of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan — where PSP chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal challenged his opponents to hold a similar programme, even with half of its strength, to check their popularity.

Waving PSP’s tri-colour flags and chanting slogans, a large number of women were present in Al-Farooq Ground in Nazimabad No 2, where all chairs had been taken even before the speeches of party’s central leadership. The adjacent streets were also filled with the people, particularly the male workers of the party.

PSP volunteers were seen guiding women who came from different areas to attend the meeting. The area was decorated with huge banners and flags containing pictures of Mr Kamal and PSP president Anis Kaim Khani as well as dolphin — the election symbol of the party.

Slams MQM-P, PPP; urges women to stand up again for Karachi’s rights

In his speech, he challenged the country’s all political parties, which had won the 2018 general election, to hold a women-only rally with even half a number of people present in his event. “I promise I will quit politics [if they would do so].”

The PSP chairman maintained his traditional style of levelling accusations against the leadership of his former party but this time he tried not to name names.

Referring to his opponents who, he said, called him “a traitor of Mohajirs”, he said: “The real traitor is the one who lives in London and abuses the nation in the name of Mohajirs. The traitor is the one who had Azeem Ahmed Tariq and Dr Imran Farooq assassinated.”

“The real traitor is the one who has been asking [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi to grant him [political] asylum,” he said, in a thinly veiled reference to London-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement founder Altaf Hussain.

“[Mohajirs’] traitors are those who have over 10,000 youths killed just to satisfy their ego and then returned to the MQM fold after submitting a mere apology,” he said. “The traitors are those who are still sucking the blood of Mohajirs.”

Lashing out at the MQM-Pakistan and the Pakistan Peoples Party, he said the two parties had been benefiting each other for the past three decades by playing the Sindh and Mohajir cards.

He said that neither the MQM nor the PPP did any positive thing for their voters. Even in the interior of Sindh, clean drinking water was not available for the people. In Karachi, water, sewerage, sanitation and health like basic necessities were still a dream, he added.

Mr Kamal said when the time for election came the MQM-P and PPP would try to play the ‘Mohajir and Sindh card’ again.

He criticised the PPP for snatching the right of local people of Karachi in government jobs and for its open opposition to a university in Hyderabad.

He said that Karachi University was for the students of Karachi, but the government wanted its administration to give more admission to students of other parts of Sindh at the cost of city’s students. “Why is it [the PPP] not establishing more universities near the places of residence of students of the interior of Sindh?” he said.

He said that the PSP would make legislation to give 40 per cent representation to women in the assemblies. “Whenever we get the opportunity, we will give free transport facility to women. We will provide them small loans on the pattern of Bangladesh to help them establish domestic industry.”

He said that women had to stand up for the rights of this city like they did in the past. “I am witness to incidents in Karachi when no male was there to offer funeral prayers for their loved ones and at that time brave women of Karachi led and offered the funeral prayers of their sons and challenged the people in power.”

PSP president Anis Ahmed Kaim Khani said on the occasion that Sunday’s event had made it clear that the PSP would not stop until a complete victory. He said the women-only rally gave the verdict that only Mustafa Kamal was the leader of Karachi.

PSP women leaders Bilquis Mukhtar, Aasia Ishaque, Sofia Saeed, Naila Begum, Fauzia Tayyab and others also spoke.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2020