The News that his party had fulfilled a longstanding demand of the residents of the city’s rural areas by reviving the DCK and it was a great achievement.
However, there is a twist in this “great achievement”. Many areas that were part of the council before it was abolished have been excluded from the revived one including the union councils of Ibrahim Hyderi, Rehri Goth, Landhi, Gaghar and Gulshan-e-Hadeed from the former Bin Qasim Town and the union councils of Gabo Pat, Manghopir and Songal.
Khuda Dino Shah, a prominent political leader and a former nazim of Bin Qasim Town, said the PPP feared that it would be defeated in the upcoming local bodies elections in the rural areas and that was why it had intentionally divided the Malir district to weaken its political opponents there.
“The new delimitation is a pre-poll rigging tactic and we want the government to restore the DCK to its original shape as it was in 2001,” he added.
Shah said the City District Government Karachi during its 10-year tenure had largely ignored the rural parts of Malir in terms of development.
“The residents of Malir are worried that their areas will again be neglected by the district municipal corporation.”
Past DCK polls
Haji Shafi Jamot, currently a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MPA, has thrice been elected the chairman of the DCK.
Abdul Hakeem Baloch, presently the state minister for communication, has also been elected the DCK chairman once. Since 1993, there were no DCK elections as its affairs were run through administrators and deputy commissioners.
Memon said Jamot, Baloch, Shah and other key leaders are part of a strong political alliance in the Malir district that could pose problems for the PPP in the DCK polls expcted to be held in September this year.
In the 2013 general elections, Baloch and Jamot, on PML-N tickets, had defeated the PPP’s candidates in the constituencies of NA-258 and PS-129, respectively.
Saleem Baloch, another political leader allied with them, gave a tough time to the PPP in the PS-130 constituency.
Political analysts say that after the recent delimitation, the PPP can easily win the DCK polls as the areas of their rival leaders have been excluded from the council’s jurisdiction.
“The areas of Jamot and Shah have been excluded from the DCK and that means that the PPP won’t have to face a powerful rival in the polls,” said Memon.
PPP leaders argue that the delimitation of the DCK was an administrative issue and had nothing to do with the local politics of the Malir district. The PPP Malir district information secretary said the administration, while framing the jurisdiction of any district, recognises the natural boundaries like rivers, nullahs and major roads.
“It isn’t based on the will of a specific political party or individual,” Talpur added.
Referring to the examples of Gulshan-e-Hadeed and Ibrahim Hyderi, Talpur said in recent years, these areas had become urban towns and including them in the DCK would be unfair.
Rejecting the allegation that the some areas had deliberately been left out of the DCK to benefit the ruling party in the upcoming polls, he said Malir had remained a traditional stronghold of the PPP as the party had carried out development worked there and created job opportunities for its residents.