PPP caves in to MQM-P demands on UCs

Number rises to 299 as 53 new councils added

KARACHI:

The Sindh government has notified the addition of 53 union councils in Karachi in line with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) demand, with a notification regarding the same issued on Monday.

The issue of delimitation of constituencies has been a sore point between the Pakistan Peoples Party, who is in power in Sindh, and the MQM-P. The MQM-P boycotted the LG elections held in in Karachi in January over the issue and even threatened a sit-in last month before calling it off after getting assurances.

The two parties are part of the ruling coalition at the federal level, with the issue also discussed in Islamabad.

The MQM-P had contended that demarcation wasn’t consistent with drastic difference in the size of UCs. On average, a UC has around 30,000 people. But some of the constituencies comprised 80,000 people while others were as low as 15,000. The MQM-P had contended that this was done by design to deprive MQM-P of representation.
Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman criticized the decision to increase the number of union councils in Karachi.

A statement from the party said that the PPP had issued the notification to provide ‘face saving’ to the MQM-P as the new constituencies would only go in affect in the next election.

“After the new census, the number of national, provincial and municipal constituencies will be determined afresh,” he said while accusing the PPP and MQM-P of trying to dupe the people of the city.

Reacting to the development, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) urged the election commission to declare the LG elections in Karachi ‘null and void’ and announce new polls in the metropolis.

“We will go to the court and challenge not the previous elections but the new delimitations,” said Haleem Adil Sheikh, PTI’s opposition leader in Sindh Assembly.

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