PPP sails through local government by-elections comfortably

MQM-P suffers defeat in Hyderabad from London faction, Mirza loses in Badin


Sarfaraz Memon/z Ali April 14, 2017
The seat had fallen vacant after its incumbent, senior ITP leader Muhammad Ali Sheikh died. PHOTO: FILE

HYDERABAD/SUKKUR: By-elections on some seats of district councils, municipal corporations, municipal committees and town committees were held on Thursday throughout upper Sindh, including Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore-Kandhkot, Shikarpur, Larkana and Kamber-Shahdadkot. The seats had fallen vacant mostly due to the resignation of those members who had won more than two seats. One seat of Sukkur Municipal Corporation had fallen vacant due to the death of a member of a union council (UC), while one seat of Larkana District Council had fallen vacant due to the death of the chairman of union council Karani in Dokri taluka.

The Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) candidates bagged most of the seats in the by-elections of the local bodies in the districts of Hyderabad, Nawabshah and Mirpurkhas divisions.

In Hyderabad, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-Pakistan) suffered as an independent candidate backed by MQM-London won the chairman's seat in Union Committee 46 of Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. Asif Beg secured 769 votes against MQM-P's Tauqeer Khan who got 458 votes, according to unofficial results.

PPP's Syed Allahyar Shah was elected as chairman with 1,664 votes in UC-2 of District Council Hyderabad. His opponent Khan Muhammad received 434 votes.

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In Mirpurkhas district's municipal committee, the MQM- Pakistan managed to secure its earlier victory on ward 10. The party's candidate, Abdul Jabbar Sambhri, received 821 votes, winning comfortably over the PPP's Mohammed Saleem Sambhri, who secured 288 votes.

In Badin district, PPP's arch-rival and former home minister, Zulfiqar Mirza, who had put up a tough contest in the 2015 local government elections, could not achieve victory. The Mirza group's independent candidate managed to draw only 50 votes in ward 1 of town committee Tando Bago against 721 polled to PPP's Ghulam Hassan Qambrani. In ward 8 of the same town committee, PPP's Anwar Ali Khwaja received 970 votes and Mirza group's Usman Ghani Soomro, 237.

PPP's candidates bagged both the seats of members of wards 23 and 2 of municipal committee Nawabshah and town committee Sakrand, respectively.

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The party also won the seat of UC-3 chairman in district council Jamshoro, member of UC-13 in district council Tando Muhammad Khan and member of UC-12 and chairman of UC-4 in district council Thatta.

No major incident was reported during the by-elections except in Larkana where ASI Khan Muhammad Junejo shot dead police constable Saddaruddin Junejo over a karo-kari dispute. Both the policemen belonged to Ratodero and were deployed on election duty at a polling station in Butra village in Dokri taluka.

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