PPP, Muttahida leaders trade barbs as Karachi battlefield heats up

With the election campaigns of political parties heating up, leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Friday made belittling remarks against each other’s parties.

Karachi PPP President Saeed Ghani, who served as the labour minister in the last elected Sindh government, said the MQM-P was acting like a beggar in the manner it had been earnestly pleading with different political parties to form an electoral alliance to win the upcoming general elections by any means.

He said this while talking to media persons after visiting the membership drive camp of the Peoples Lawyers’ Forum at the City Courts. He said the current hopeless situation of the MQM-P completely negated its past claims that it did not require alliances with any political parties to win the elections in Karachi.

He said the MQM-P had become the ‘dead horse’ of Karachi’s politics having no chance to win the next general elections. Ghani maintained that neither had the PPP in the past considered the option of allying itself with the Muttahida nor would it mull over such a possibility in future.

He opined that MQM-P Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui was a powerless head of his party who had been surrounded with the politicians who were earlier with the Pak Sarzameen Party. He said that no prominent politician of the party who had not defected from the MQM in the past could be seen with Dr Siddiqui these days.

Answering a question, Ghani said that at present, the PPP had not been considering the option of allying itself with any other political party to contest the general elections in Karachi. “Neither has the People’s Party contacted any other party nor has it been contacted by anyone for making such an alliance as the PPP’s candidates are going to contest the upcoming polls on the election symbol of their party,” he remarked.

He, however, said that negotiations for forming any electoral alliance could not be completely ruled out by the PPP as such talks could take place as the elections date came nearer.

Ghani reiterated the demand of the PPP that every political party should get a level playing field to contest the upcoming general polls. He said that holding free and fair general elections was in the best interest of the country.

To another question, he said the impression being created in the country that Nawaz Sharif would be the next prime minister showed that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was being extended support from the undemocratic forces so that it could emerge victorious in the upcoming general elections.

He said the anti-PPP forces in Sindh did not have any chance to win the general polls. Even the political opponents of the Peoples Party conceded that it would be the winner of the upcoming general elections in Sindh, he added.

He claimed that after winning the local government elections in Karachi, the PPP would also bag the maximum number of National Assembly and Sindh Assembly seats of the city. Meanwhile, MQM-P leaderKhawaja Izharul Hassan accused the PPP of deliberately snatching jobs from the youth of Karachi under a conspiracy. He alleged that the PPP’s Sindh government had embezzled public money amounting billions of rupees.

Hassan made these remarks while addressing an inaugural ceremony of the MQM-P’s election office in New Karachi. He said the urban areas of Sindh had been badly ignored during the PPP’s 15-year rule in the province as the PPP’s only policy seemed plundering public money. He added that the MQM-P was committed to bringing true representatives of the people forward.

He said the MQM-P took the matter of illegal appointments in the government departments to court and had them declared null and void. On the occasion, MQM-P Senior Deputy Convener Dr Farooq Sattar claimed that his party had organised the most number of rallies compared to other political parties for the upcoming elections.

The landlords and feudal lords had forcefully imposed their mayor on Karachi, he said, adding that the time of corruption and bad governance was now over. The PPP was dreaming of capturing Karachi but in reality, the era of looting that had prevailed for the past 15 years was coming to an end, he said.