Parties told to keep it clean as demand for troops persists

Karachi
As the contenders of the bout for NA-246, especially the two heavyweights the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, were told to keep it clean by the Karachi commissioner on Sunday, the two parties continued to take verbal jabs at each other.
PTI candidate Imran Ismail, while addressing a press conference in Karimabad, demanded that the army should be given complete authority to conduct the by-polls under its supervision.
“We don’t trust police and the administration,” he said. “That’s why we want the army to be given full control of the process.”
He said PTI workers were not being allowed to run their campaign.
“PTI workers are victimised and the people who attacked at our camps hjave been released,” he added.
Ismail also criticised the provincial government for being “too scared to take action against such anti-social elements”
“The MQM has handed over guns to the youth instead of pens; if we win we will pens back to them.”
The PTI candidate said he was born and raised in Karachi while the MQM candidate was not even a resident of the city.

No objection
Talking to reporters, MQM candidate Kunwar Naveed Jameel said his party had no objection over the deployment of army for the by-polls.
“The NA-246 seat belongs to the MQM and nobody can snatch it from the party,” he added.
Jameel advised the PTI to stop giving provocative statements against the MQM leadership.
“The PTI needs to change its attitude, we have no grudge against it,” he said.
Jameel also said predicted that the PTI would be the second runner-up in the polls.
Code of conduct
Earlier, Karachi commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqi held a meeting with the candidates contesting the by-polls, MQM’s Kunwar Naveed Jamil, PTI’s Imran Ismail PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami’s Rashid Nasim the prominent ones among them, and advised them to strictly follow the code of conduct.
He also told them that action would be taken against any candidate found violating the code.
The candidates were instructed to seek permission before staging rallies.
Later, in response to a query about PTI’s demand for polls to be held under army supervision, the commissioner told reporters that every party had the right to put forward its demands.
Karachi police chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo said on the occasion that police were committed to providing protection to the citizens in coordination with Rangers as well as the army
Imran Ismail told reporters that he had conveyed his concerns to the commissioner during the meeting.
“I told the commissioner that the atmosphere within the constituency was tense and people were in a state of fear and panic. Even traders were scared of running their business,” he added.