KARACHI: The Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) on Saturday agreed to withdraw its candidates from three National Assembly and 14 Sindh Assembly seats in Karachi after seat adjustment dialogue with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P).

Addressing a joint press conference, GDA’s Information Secretary Sardar Abdur Rahim and MQM-P’s Senior Deputy Convener Syed Mustafa Kamal said that as per understanding between the two parties, all the women candidates of GDA shall participate in the election.

Meanwhile, NA-248 and PS-108 have been kept open, while the GDA candidates will participate in the election on NA-231, PS-84 and PS-86 where MQM has not fielded any candidate. MQM had already conceded PS-105 to GDA’s Irfanullah Khan Marwat.

The two leaders also strongly condemned the attacks on election offices and camps across the country and agreed that they would not let anyone take away their mandate, adding that people were fed up with the former rulers and they would give their mandate in their favour [GDA’s and MQM-Ps] this time.

Abdul Karim Sheikh of GDA, Iftikhar Alam of MQM-P and others were also present on this occasion.

Sardar Rahim strongly condemned the attacks by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) workers and supporters on the election offices of MQM-P and said that such non-democratic tactics were a conspiracy to spoil the election environment. “In case of transparent elections, GDA and its allies will be successful,” he added.

He said that the GDA was getting overwhelming support in the rural parts of the province. “In fifteen years, the Peoples Party has made Sindh barren, due to which the people are disgusted with them and they want to elect a new leadership,” he said.

Syed Mustafa Kamal thanked the leadership of the GDA for their support and said that they would jointly defeat the corrupt mafia. “Our election camps are being attacked, our worker has been martyred and our FIR is not being registered,” he said adding that if the FIR had been registered earlier, there would not have been another death on Friday.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2024