KARACHI: The Jamaat-i-Islami on Friday staged a sit-in outside the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in protest against ‘failure’ of the constitutional body to announce the schedule for polling in 11 remaining union committees (UCs) of Karachi, making results of Jan 15 voting ‘controversial’ and ‘facilitating’ the ruling Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) in the ‘post-poll rigging’.

The party warned that any ‘conspiracy’ against the people’s mandate by the PPP government and the ECP would attract strong reaction from Karachiites.

Addressing the sit-in, JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman said that after failure of all tactics by the Sindh government to delay the local bodies elections, the polling was held in January, but now the PPP had revived its efforts to stop the process of its completion.

“The PPP never wanted local government elections in Karachi,” he said. “For this it was openly supported and backed by the MQM-P. But the people of Karachi exposed them through social media and JI campaign. The two parties are now planning new schemes to keep Karachiites deprived of their basic rights,” he added.

He said the local government elections were held on January 15, but the ECP could not announce till now the schedule for polls in 11 UCs where the elections had been postponed because of demise of candidates.

“We demand the ECP to decide the cases of 20 union councils which were withheld and give schedule of voting in 11 UCs,” added Hafiz Naeem.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023