Saeed Ghani offers to step down as PPP city chief over poor poll performance

The president of Pakistan Peoples Party’s Karachi chapter, Saeed Ghani, has offered to step down from his position over the party’s “unsatisfactory performance” in general elections in the city.

In a message posted on his Twitter account, Ghani said he had neither been censured by the party leadership nor was he being asked to step down, instead he had made the offer to the party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on a voluntary basis.

Ghani, who won from PS-104 Karachi East, said that he was making the offer to step down as president of party’s Karachi chapter while accepting the responsibility of the party’s “unsatisfactory performance” in the city.

It should be mentioned that Ghani is among the six PPP candidates from Karachi who were able to win Sindh Assembly seats, while three candidates of PPP were elected as members of the National Assembly from Karachi.

The PPP Karachi chapter faced a major electoral setback this year in Lyari – the party’s stronghold for nearly 50 years – where it lost all seats, including NA-246 from where party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was contesting. Lyari had always been considered as the stronghold of PPP where it traditionally won almost all elections in the past. However this year, the residents voted a PTI candidate into the National Assembly, while a Tehreek-e-Labbaik candidate and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal candidate made it to the Sindh Assembly from there.

Allegations of rigging

Meanwhile PPP leaders, including Ghani, rejected the elections results on Sunday, claiming that the hundreds of stamped ballot papers recovered from garbage dumps had proved beyond any doubt that rigging had been done in the polls.

Addressing a press conference, Ghani said the recovery of ballot papers had cast doubts on the performance of the Election Commission of Pakistan. Holding up damaged ballot papers reportedly recovered from a garbage dump in Qayyumabad, Ghani said the papers belonged to the NA-241 Karachi from where a PTI candidate was declared successful.

He alleged that ballot papers in a much larger number had been disposed of at the dumping site and were deliberately set on fire to destroy them. He added only those papers were recovered from the site which escaped destruction.

The leader claimed that with time, more such evidences would come to the fore, which would prove systematic rigging in general elections held in the city. “The evidences collected so far have proved without any doubt that the conduct of general elections was highly suspicious and controversial and the elections were never free and fair,” he said.

Ghani added that Form-45, containing results of vote counts in each of the polling stations of a constituency, were not given to the polling agents of different contesting political parties. He added PTI could never win such a large number of seats in Karachi.

According to Ghani, similar unlawful tactics were used during the past polls, enabling Muttahida Qaumi Movement to win in Karachi. The PPP leader said a petition would be filed in the Election Commission of Pakistan under sub-section 5 of Section 95 of the Election Act on the issue of recovery of ballot papers from a garbage dump in the city.

PPP leader Waqar Mehdi said his party would take due lawful action for getting justice on all such cases of irregularities in the conduct of general elections. He added the ECP, in view of its solemn responsibility, should openly accept its utter failure to conduct the general polls in a free, fair and transparent manner.