HYDERABAD: Mutta­hida Qaumi Move-ment-Pakistan (MQM-P) convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui has said that digital census is a good thing to avoid human error and if there are any technical defects in the process, they can be addressed.

He was speaking at a one-day free medical camp organised by the Khidmat-i-Khalq Foun-dation (KKF) here on Friday evening and later at a flower exhibition in Quaid-i-Millat Park Latifabad.

He said that except for the MQM-P everyone got relief in the country as the party was a threat to the system and not to people. It was time that the MQM-P and its people to strive again to save Pakistan; it’s time to save Pakistan’s economy and the poor instead of saving by-elections, he observed.

If elections were again held in the shape of selection, he said, it would be a repeat of 2018 polls when those who won the elections were themselves surprised, he said.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) did not believe in ‘mardam shanasi’, he criticised and addressing to the PPP said: “If you don’t count people correctly, you should start counting your difficult days ahead.”

Mr Siddiqui said Hyderabad was not a city of ‘slaves’ and its people also had right to politics, but they (PPP) should better win hearts of people and they would win elections then. He said Hyderabad could not be conquered by force.

He said that only the MQM did not get any relief while everyone got it and that was the reason that despite being in power, the party faced bans. Its reason was that the MQM-P was a threat to the present system, he said.

He claimed that only MQM’s way of politics offered solution to the country’s issues.

He said there remained an undeclared and declared ban on MQM’s politics, but still the party was striving to serve people without any discrimination of caste, creed and colour.

He said the Muttahida was formed in 1984, but the KKF was established in 1980 to serve people, which showed that the MQM had started its working with the service of humanity.

He said that a ban on the collection of hides and donation was imposed in 2015 that otherwise used to enable the MQM to run institutions like the KKF. In the prevailing conditions, it was not the party that was running the KKF, but God’s help made it possible alone, he added.

It was the KKF that was reaching out to the deserving people without any discrimination of caste, creed or colour, he said.

Appreciating the efforts of KKF’s head Dr Tahir Khanzada, he said his dream of transforming the foundation into a medical college and post graduate institute would translate into reality.

Saying that the KKF was providing services to people from all parts of Sindh, he hoped that it would keep delivering. In a lighter vein, he said, after the ban on MQM’s donation, hides and skins lost their worth.

He said the rulers had failed in giving a university to Hyderabad city in the last 75 years while urban centres had been kept deprived of their rights and resources for the past 14 years.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023