Karachi
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Tuesday warned that the party will halt Sindh Assembly sessions and will stop the provincial machinery from functioning if the elected local government representatives were not granted due powers.
Addressing a protest demonstration outside the office of Sindh Election Commission, opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan, Senator Abdul Haseeb, city’s mayoral candidate Waseem Akhtar and MPA Muhammad Hussain in their strongly-worded speeches warned the Pakistan People’s Party that if powers were not delegated to elected members of local governments, including union councils, district councils, committees, chairmen, deputy mayor and mayor, the party will not allow the Sindh government to function.
Though the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued the schedule for holding indirect elections on more than 9,500 reserved seats and oath-taking of councillors in the province on Monday, the MQM continued its protest outside the ECP office on Tuesday.
The party had begun protesting outside the office of ECP office on Monday, against what it described was the non-serious attitude of the Sindh government and the ECP for completing the process of establishing local bodies.
They said the Sindh Assembly will not be allowed to sit in session and there will be protests on the streets, while alleging that the provincial government and the Election Commission of Pakistan were conniving together to keep the power out of power.
They said whenever the MQM was given the mandate of the people of Karachi, the PPP conspired to damage it. They said the present government hadn’t even been ready to hold local government elections.
The leader of opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan, while talking to The News outside the ECP office said the party will continue protesting till the notification for indirect election on reserved seats and oath-taking of councillors was implemented.
“They have issued a date but who knows when they will act on it?” he said. “More than a month-and-half has passed since the completion of the third phase of local government election but the Sindh government and ECP don’t seem to be serious in completing the process.”
When asked why the party did not raise its voice in the mean time, he said, it was not the party’s duty to remind the government of its duties. “But we have been forced to protest after government’s failure for completing the process,” he said.
Speaking to the protesters, MQM’s candidate for the post of mayor, Waseem Akhtar, if the rights of elected representatives and local governments were not granted duly then the party would not allow holding of assembly sessions. He said as soon as the party would come to power in local bodies, it would hold inquiries against the illegal activities being carried out in municipal commissions.
He said the Pakistan People’s Party-led Sindh government had not held local bodies elections for the past seven years but when the MQM raised its voice for it, the Supreme Court issued orders for conducting the polls.
He accused the PPP of threatening the party’s elected local government representatives. Akhtar said the tenders issued by local government minister after December 5 were illegal and so were the use of funds.
The MQM leaders said the ECP was an independent institution and it did not have to rely on the Sindh government to make decisions. They warned that if the Sindh government did not expedite the process of establishing local bodies, the party would not let a single session of the provincial assembly.
Akhtar blames PPP
Hours after the Sindh Minister for Local Government Jam Khan Shoro termed the bursting of water pipelines - three in two months - in the metropolis a ‘planned conspiracy’, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) candidate for mayor, Waseem Akhtar, thrashed the Pakistan People’sParty (PPP)-led Sindh government for prolonging city’s municipal issues by delaying elections for the post of mayor/deputy mayor in the city.
“The PPP is deliberately prolonging problems of the city’s resident’s by delaying formation of local government institutions,” however, Akhtar warned of taking back mayoral powers from the provincial government at all costs. The senior MQM leader called for the Shoro to not interfere in municipal affairs. The local government’s minister had in an earlier press conference claimed that sewerage lines in Karachi were choked by gunny bags and other filth on purpose.