‘MQM-P afraid of reaching out to voters’

The former chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has expressed wish to see Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan contesting the upcoming general elections because he believed that the party is fearful of the voters. "We had tried a lot to convince MQM-P to take part in the local government elections but they boycotted the polls," he recalled while talking to the media in Aarazi area of Sehwan, Jamshoro district, on Thursday.

Refuting the MQM-P's allegations that the bureaucracy is favouring the PPP, Shah said the caretaker government reshuffled the province's entire administrative machinery after they replaced the outgoing elected government in August 2023. "We don't really care if they [interim government] once again conducted top to botton reshuffle in the province because the power of vote is vested in the public and not in the government officials."

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Commenting of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl's stance with regard to postponement of the polls, Shah said they respect Molana Fazlur Rehman but the PPP wanted to see the elections taking place on the scheduled date. "The terrorists will win if the polls are delayed," he underlined.

The former CM also did not consider the ongoing winter season as a valid reason to defer the polls. Meanwhile, the PPP Sindh's President Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has said the elections will happen on February 8 because he believed that the Supreme Court will implement its order.

Talking to the media in the Miru Khan area in Kambar-Shahdadkot district on Thursday, Khuhro believed that PPP will emerge victorious not only from Sindh but from all parts of Pakistan. "After Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will become the country's prime minister.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2024.