New LG bill shows feudal mindset of PPP, says MQM-P

As part of their protest against the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2021, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) organised a demonstration outside the District Municipal Corporation Central’s (DMC Central) office near the Gujjar Nullah.

Addressing the participants of the protest, MQM-P leaders Kunwar Naveed Jamil and Syed Wasim Akhtar said the bill recently passed by the Sindh Assembly aimed at paralysing the local body government system in the country’s largest city.

Through legislation, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) wanted to encroach upon rights of municipal administrations defying the basic rule of a strong democracy, the MQM-P leaders said. “The passage of the bill in an undemocratic way shows the feudal mindset of the PPP, which prevails among its leadership.”

The MQM-P leaders said Karachi’s residents wanted to ask the state institutions and apex courts if there was any national consensus to destroy the urban areas of Sindh. Jamil, who has also served as the Hyderabad mayor in the past, said the MQM-P had strongly opposed the idea of selecting the mayor through secret balloting as it would open avenues of buying and selling votes. “We will not sit idly by until we put an end to injustices with the people of Karachi,” he added.

Appealing to the chief justice of Pakistan, Akhtar, former Karachi mayor, said the party’s petition for devolution of powers had been awaiting a decision since 2017 in his court. The institutions, including the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases, Karachi Medical and Dental College, which were created with the budget of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, had also been taken away from the municipality through the recently passed bill, other speakers said.

A day earlier on Wednesday, the MQM-P announced that the party would convene an all-parties’ conference on December 11 to discuss the new bill. Addressing a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Bahadurabad, MQM-P Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said the KIDC and KMDC had been created with the budget of the KMC but now they had also been taken away from the municipality.