• Accuses caretaker administration of ‘siding with PPP’
• IGP urged to arrest killers of party worker

KARACHI: Despite facing ‘threats and resistance’ from the provincial administration and recent killings of its workers, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of boycotting the Feb 8 elections and warned that any attempt to ‘snatch’ the mandate of Karachi through ‘vandalism and power’ would attract a serious reaction.

The top leadership of the party was furious over the recent ‘attack’ on its workers but was clear that the boycott of the electoral process was not an option that it had chosen for the local government polls last year.

They insisted that the boycott of the local government elections was justified and the situation that unfolded after election had provided its narrative.

“How could we go into the flawed [local government] polls when some 100 union committees were removed from the Karachi electoral mandate,” MQM-P convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui replied to a question about the option of boycotting the Feb 8 polls.

“This time the people would only boycott those who have sold their future and their dreams. The people would boycott those who have snatched their right to live in urban Sindh and deprived them of every single human right. This election is a question of life and death for the people of Karachi and other cities of Sindh,” he said.

Accompanied by senior party leader Mustafa Kamal and Dr Farooq Sattar, he also accused the caretaker administration of Sindh, led by Chief Minister retired Justice Maqbool Baqar, of partying with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) due to his ‘past association with the party’.

“We supported and agreed over your [Justice Baqar’s] name [as caretaker CM] with the hope that despite your past association with the PPP, you would have feelings for the people of Karachi and urban Sindh,” he said. “But we were wrong. You proved us wrong. Now we have given up putting demands before the caretaker government because we know they won’t do anything. They don’t even want to do anything.”

However, he demanded that the inspector general of police (IGP) be ensured the arrest of the killers of MQM-P worker Faraz Qureshi, who was shot dead in Nazimabad on Sunday.

He also questioned his impartiality as the police had failed to arrest those who were nominated in the FIR by the party and the family of the victims.

“What has stopped you [IGP] from arresting them,” asked Dr Siddiqui. “What a shame that the ECP is so worried about the removal of banners of candidates but unable to see violations of the set rules everyday and use of government machinery by certain parties. It’s worried about the content of the pamphlet but doesn’t care about the lives of the people.”

He also accused the PPP of ‘managing the elections’ well before the day of polling as a ‘number of the party-affiliated officials were being posted as polling staff’ but all that went unchecked ‘under the nose of the authorities,’ he added.

“I ask the ECP as to who would take care of these violations? Who would check the buying and selling of votes and managing the polling stations days before the polling day,” he asked. “But let me be very clear that the people of Karachi would not allow anyone to steal their mandate and snatch their right to vote. If the past trend is repeated, then Karachi knows how to react and protect its vote.”

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2024

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