PTI, JI condemn Sindh govt for delaying LG polls yet again

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Jamaat-e-Islami came down hard on the Sindh government of the Pakistan Peoples Party on Friday for delaying the local government elections in Karachi and Hyderabad divisions yet again, vowing to continue their battles to get the elections conducted in the province.

PTI Sindh leaders and its Sindh Assembly members condemned the provincial government's decision to delay the polls for another 90 days. Speaking at a joint press conference at the Insaf House, PTI Sindh senior leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had delayed the polls at the behest of the PPP. “The electoral body is unable to make its own decision. The commission should have decided whether the Sindh government's pretence about a lack of required security personnel was real or fake.”

Navqi said it was not a difficult task to investigate how many police personnel had been deployed for duties in Islamabad and how many were assisting flood victims in relief work. If police from Sindh could go to Islamabad, then the LG polls could be conducted with the support of private security companies, he remarked.

Naqvi said a “ridiculous change” had been made in the law for the LG elections, as the provincial government had abolished the provision of holding the LG elections within 120 days after the announcement.

If 120 days were not enough, then the government would have increased the limit to 150 days, but removing the whole section from the act was beyond understanding, he added. He said the former chief justice had issued an order that the local governments should be formed according to Article 140A of the constitution, but the ECP was silent about complying with the court orders.

PTI Sindh Information Secretary Arsalan Taj said the provincial government had no intention to conduct the LG elections from day one. The ECP postponed the elections on the behalf of the PPP government, and those who had been in power for the last 15 years had destroyed Sindh, including Karachi, he alleged.

Taj said Sindh police personnel were sent to Islamabad, while Sindh cabinet members had played their role in postponing the elections. The nation would never forgive the PPP ministers and defeat would be their destiny whenever the LG elections were held.

JI’s legal battle

JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman also condemned the Pakistan Peoples Party government in Sindh for according approval to another delay in local government polls through a circulation summary and a local government department letter written to the ECP. He said the party would not accept any further delay and condemned the ruling regime in Sindh for its, what he called, “illegal, unconstitutional, undemocratic and anti-people conduct”.

Addressing a press conference at Idara Noor-e-Haq, the JI Karachi headquarters, on Friday night, Rehman said the provincial government had breached all the limits of stubbornness. He said that instead of realising its worst failures, the PPP government had resorted to dictatorial tactics and was delaying the local government polls again and again.

He announced that the JI would not let the PPP government in the province run away from the polls and it would announce its future course of action soon after consultation against the “unconstitutional steps taken by the PPP”. Rehman was of the view that the PPP government was violating Supreme Court orders by creating hurdles in holding the LG polls.

He demanded of the Election Commission of Pakistan to fulfil its constitutional obligations. The ECP in exercise of its constitutional powers needed to bound the Sindh government to provide required staffers, he said, adding that the ECP also needed to summon Rangers and FC personnel to ensure free and fair LG polls in the province.

He announced that the JI would reiterate its viewpoint on November 15 at the meeting called in Islamabad by the ECP. A local government setup is a constitutional right of the people in Karachi and other parts of the Sindh, whereas the PPP government in Sindh has usurped the right for the past two and half years, he said.

The JI leader said Karachi had been accommodating some 30 million individuals and had also been neglected for decades, and now the burning issues of the city needed to be addressed by a proper local government system. He added that the Sindh government wanted to enjoy the resources and powers of an elected mayor by imposing an undemocratic administrator on the city.

The JI leader further said that his party had already filed petitions in the Supreme Court and the Sindh High Court against the delays in the polls. He vowed to fight for the city in and outside the courts.