PTI condemns PPP-MQM nexus against LG elections

Party leaders also see 'political engineering' behind reunification of MQM groups

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has condemned the Sindh government's effort to get the local bodies elections postponed for a fourth time.

"The local bodies' elections have repeatedly been postponed in Karachi and Hyderabad on one pretext or the other," Imran Ismail, senior PTI leader and former governor, said at a press conference on Friday.

The LB elections in Islamabad have been postponed due to the Election Commission of Pakistan, while the LB elections in Karachi and Hyderabad have been postponed three times due to the politics of due to MQM and PPP, he said.

While speaking alongside Imran Ismail, PTI Sindh President Ali Zaidi said that if the allegations of Mustafa Kamal, chief of Pak Sarzameen Party who has merged his party with MQM, against Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui were true, then why did he rejoined MQM? Who is forcing Mustafa Kamal to unify his party with MQM?

Kamal had accused Siddiqi of being an agent of Indian intelligence agency RAW.

Zaidi said that "political engineering" was the biggest hurdle in Pakistan's progress. Only a government with a public mandate can take the country forward, he said, adding that reunification of MQM poses no threat to PTI in Karachi. "Results of the by-elections in NA-243, NA-244, NA-237 and NA-245 are in front of everyone. In each of these constituencies, the combined votes of the various factions of the MQM are not more than the votes of the PTI," he added.

Former Sindh governor Imran Ismail, PTI Karachi President Bilal Ghaffar, PTI parliamentary leader in the Sindh Assembly Khurram Sher Zaman, senior leader Firdaus Shamim Naqvi, PTI Sindh spokesman Arsalan Taj, MPA Dr. Sanjay, Abbas Jafferi, PTI Sindh Deputy Secretary Information Nisar Ahmed Shar and others were also present in the press conference.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2023.