KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan announced on Friday that it would stage what it called a huge rally for the rights of Karachi on Sept 22.

The party convened a workers’ convention at a park adjacent to its temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad to consult them on the situation arising after the announcement of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ambitious Rs1.1 trillion Karachi Transformation Plan as well as on the issue of new provinces.

Senior MQM-P leader Amir Khan announced that the party would take out a “huge rally” from Karimabad to Mazar-i-Quaid. He asked the people of the city to attend the programme on Sept 22 in maximum numbers for the rights of Karachi.

He was critical of the Pakistan Peoples Party government in Sindh and said that “this corrupt government” would steal the Rs1,100 billion of Karachi package if the federal government transferred this amount to it.

Without naming his major coalition partner at the centre, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, he said today every single party had become the flag-bearer of the rights of Karachi neglecting the fact that no one knew the 14 MNAs elected from the metropolis in the 2018 general elections.

He said the people of Karachi had no option but to call for a new province.

MQM-P convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui stressed the need for a “correct” census in urban Sindh and claimed that the future chief ministers would come from the urban parts of Sindh if a “true” population census took place in the metropolis and other urban centres of the province.

Talking about a new province in Sindh, he said if demanding a new province was treason then the naysayers should tell why former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had made it a constitutional option.

He said those opposing a new province in Sindh were actually working “for the creation of Sindhudesh” and it was the responsibility of the federation and the state to act against those dreaming of disintegrating Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2020