HYDERABAD: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s leader Rauf Siddiqui has expressed disappointment in present caretaker government in Sindh and warned if the government officers do not stop proving their loyalties to a particular political party they will be held accountable after Feb 8 polls.

He said the officers were public servants and not ‘employees’ of any political party. The Pakistan Peoples Party should concentrate on its poll campaign and also let the MQM to run its election drive, he said at a press conference at Pucca Qilla ground on Tuesday.

Flanked by the party’s candidates for Hyderabad, Aleem Khanzada, Sabir Kaimkhani, Nasir Qureshi, Wasim Hussain, Rashid Khan, Kamran Qureshi and Ms Naseemus Sahar, he said that his party did not hope any good coming from the caretaker government.

He said that MQM-P’s party flags were being removed but the party did not want to fight with anyone over it because he feared the day when his workers reacted to such excesses. Even today one political party’s flags were being hoisted through local governments’ vehicles at the sites of development works, he said.

He announced the party would organise a public meeting in Pucca Qilla ground on Feb 2. The party’s seats were snatched in 2018 elections and doled out to some other party, he said.

Siddiqui said that MQM-P was forced to support that party in the government but later it was ousted through no confidence motion due to their support.

He expressed hope that this election would record impressive turnout. MQM should not be intimidated as it had a long history of sacrifices. “We are fighting ‘money grabbed through corruption’ that is being used against us,” he said and urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to take notice of violation of code of conduct by LGs.

He said that LGs should be wound up and re-polling should be held for them on Feb 8 as the people at the helm of affairs in the LGs were in fact a product of MQM’s boycott. The MQM-P had accepted caretakers’ names as it thought that it could to be used as a pretext to delay the polls, he said.

He believed that no party would get clear majority in Sindh and centre in the wake of Feb 8 polls and said that if PPP had invested only half of Rs20,000 billion in Sindh’s cities and villages it would have constructed them thrice.

He said that 1970 polls were neither transparent nor fair and hence they led to the dismemberment of Pakistan. The Feb 8 polls should not be a repeat of the 1970 elections, he warned.

He said that MQM-P was keeping a record of the statements issued by PPP’s second tier leadership and it would confront the party with these when the party approached them to seek votes.

He said the MQM-P had always signed agreements after seeking people’s advice. The party had already prepared draft amendments and it would sign accord with the party which was ready to empower LGs, he said.

Dr Irfan Gul Magsi, who recently joined MQM-P, was also present on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2024