KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party would support a vote of no confidence against Mayor Wasim Akhtar if and when one is moved in the City Council, said PPP Karachi Division President Saeed Ghani on Sunday.
The mayor’s performance is not visible anywhere as he has not been able to utilise the Rs8 billion the Sindh government provided for development projects to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, Ghani said while speaking to The News. According to the PPP leader, KMC has not been able to show good performance and has remained unable to collect revenue, which has landed it into a huge financial crisis. “PPP would take full political advantage of their intra-party conflict and would support a vote of no confidence against the mayor,” said Ghani, referring to the recent split within Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan over the nominations for Senate which has further divided the party into two factions – one headed by Farooq Sattar headquartered in PIB Colony and the other by Amir Khan headquartered in Bahadurabad.
“We are just waiting for an appropriate situation and time,” said the PPP leader who is also an MPA in the Sindh Assembly. He claimed that while the PPP government had given underpasses and flyovers to citizens of Karachi, Mayor Akhtar, who belongs to MQM, had not been able to deliver any development project to them. “They are fighting with each other, while the citizens who have given them the mandate are waiting for them to do work for the city,” Ghani said.
When asked about MQM’s Kamran Tessori, who contested PS-114 against him in July 2017 and lost, Ghani said, “Tessori is the man who only knows how to destroy things. Just after his entry, the party [MQM] became divided.” He added Tessori was the main bone of contention within MQM-P.
“Now, no one knows whether the mayor is with the PIB Colony or Bahadurabad faction,” he said. Several attempts were made to contact Mayor Akhtar for comment, but he could not be reached.
Earlier on Thursday, The News learnt that efforts are afoot to move a vote of no confidence against Akhtar to bring in disputed deputy mayor Dr Arshad Vohra as his replacement.
Vohra had quit the MQM-P to join ex-city mayor Mustafa Kamal’s Pak Sarzameen Party back in October, following which the deputy mayor’s claim to his position was disputed by his former party.
While the election commission is yet to decide the matter, The News has found out that after the split within the MQM-P, the application against Vohra may be withdrawn to get him promoted to mayor.
Since Akhtar has sided with the Bahadurabad faction, Sattar has reportedly met with PSP leaders to plan moving a vote of no confidence against the mayor so Vohra could replace him.
While the disputed deputy mayor said he would provide a comment later, the spokesman for the PSP denied that his party and Sattar’s PIB group are planning to remove Akhtar.
The News has also learnt that the mayor recently held a meeting to get a vote of confidence after the MQM-P split started affecting the performance of the KMC and DMCs.
