MQM-P to challenge SHC verdict that allowed local govt elections on scheduled dates

In a press conference called in emergency on Saturday night, leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan announced that the party would challenge the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) recent decision on delimitations for the local government elections in the Supreme Court (SC).

The SHC had on Friday dismissed petitions filed by the MQM-P and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf for delaying the local government elections in the province as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had failed to complete the delimitation exercise and this was against orders of the SC.

Addressing the press conference, MQM-P leader and former Karachi mayor Syed Wasim Akhtar said that his party had decided to file an appeal against the decision of the SHC with the apex court. He said the SHC’s decision on Friday was against previous decisions of the SC.

Akhtar, however, did not criticise the ECP for insisting on holding the local government elections in Sindh as per the announced schedule. “The chief election commissioner is an honest and capable man. Maybe the matter did not reach them properly,” he said.

He also alleged that the Sindh government had messed up the constituencies through gerrymandering. “The Sindh government demarcated constituencies for its own political purposes wherever it wanted.”

Federal Minister Syed Aminul Haque, former law minister Farogh Naseem, Javed Hanif and other MQM-P leaders accompanied Akhtar at the press conference.

The ECP is set to hold the first phase of local government elections in Sindh today (Sunday). However, the local government elections in the MQM-P’s strongholds of Karachi and Hyderabad would take place in the second phase scheduled for July 24.