JI leader appeals to CJP to take notice of bid to further delay LG polls

The Karachi emir of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, has appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Atta Bandiyal to take notice of what he said unconstitutional measures on part of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan against the local government elections in Karachi.

The JI leader made the appeal at a press conference held at the Idara Noor-e-Haq, the JI Karachi headquarters, on Tuesday.

According to a statement issued by the JI, Rehman demanded that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) hold the local government polls on January 15, 2023, as per the schedule. He also discussed in detail what he termed anti-democratic attempts being made to resuscitate the dead political horses in the country.

The JI Karachi emir chided the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Sindh government for writing a letter to the ECP in a bid to postpone the local government elections in Karachi for the fourth time. This time, he maintained, the PPP was using the pretext of a demand made by the MQM-P for fresh delimitations of union councils in the city.

He said the PPP had been enjoying rule in the province for over 14 years and the Muttahida had fully cooperated with it during the said period except for a very few brief intervals.

The two parties could have gone for delimitations, reforms or whatever they wanted but they did not, and now the two partners were using every possible pretext to get the local government elections in Karachi further delayed, the JI leader remarked.

He was of the view that the MQM-P knew how much its popularity had dwindled in the metropolis and similarly the PPP was also aware that it had lost its ground even among the Sindhi and Balochi speakers of the city.

The PPP and MQM-P were hands in glove to deprive the people of Karachi of their due rights, Rehman alleged.

Regarding allegations levelled by the Sindh local government minister, the JI leader rejected them and reminded the minister of his own statement in a recent past, in which he had admitted that only the JI was raising voice on the matter of census in the city.

He claimed that the JI did not leave the political ground of Karachi when the city of lights was suffering from the culture of dead bodies and the PPP was unable to even hoist a single flag in the city due to the constant threat of the MQM.

It was the PPP that had played the language card, not the JI, Rehman asserted, adding that the people of Karachi had become sick of the PPP and MQM-P.

To the PPP’s claim that the JI had a limited political stature in the city, the JI leader asked that if the PPP deemed itself a major political force in Karachi, why it was afraid of holding the local government elections.