MQM-P, PTI reject ‘politically-motivated’ delimitations of LG constituencies in Karachi

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf have shown their concerns over the newly drawn local government constituencies during the delimitation process in Karachi.

The Sindh local government department has recently notified that after the delimitation of local government constituencies, Karachi will have 26 towns and 233 union committees. According to the notification, District Korangi will have 37 UCs and five towns, District South 26 UCs and two towns, District West 26 UCs and three town councils, and District Malir will have 30 UCs.

In District Central, there will be 45 UCs and five towns, District Keamari will have 26 UCs and three towns. Chanesar Goth, the constituency of Pakistan Peoples Party leader Saeed Ghani, has been declared Chanesar Town in District East, which will have 43 UCs and five towns.

MQM-P’s allegations

MQM-P leaders alleged on Tuesday that the provincial government had demarcated constituencies for its own political interests.

“Some of the less populated areas have been turned into towns, while the neighborhoods with higher populations have been made UCs,” said Kunwar Naveed Jamil, the party’s senior deputy convener, while addressing a press conference. “Population differences in different neighborhoods have been made keeping in view the PPP’s political interests.”

Jamil said that by renaming SITE Town after a village, the PPP had proved itself to be an ethnic party. The populations of towns and UCs should have been on the basis of equality under the law, but the PPP had demarcated towns and UCs on purely linguistic and political grounds, the MQM-P leader further alleged.

Karachi had been a victim of deprivations and abuses in every era of the “biased PPP government”, he said. “Instead of winning the hearts of the people of Karachi, the PPP always tries to capture it by conspiring, but the dream of the PPP to occupy Karachi has not been fulfilled till date.”

PTI’s position

PTI leaders have also opposed the new delimitations of local government constituencies and said that after passing a controversial local government bill, the PPP’s Sindh government had started occupying the towns and UCs through gerrymandering.

“The PPP knows that it cannot win the local government polls in Karachi in a transparent way and is therefore making efforts to harm the vote bank of rival political parties by gerrymandering,” Haleem Adil Sheikh, the opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, said while addressing a press conference with newly announced parliamentary leader Khurram Sherzaman and Karachi president Bilala Ghaffar of his party.

He said that because it was restructuring itself, the PTI could not launch its protest in an effective way against the newly passed local government bill. “But with new leadership in the city, the PTI will organise protests against the Sindh government to pressure it to withdraw the disputed bill and stop gerrymandering of the local government constituencies.”