Testing the waters: First-timers ASWJ confident of victory

Leaders say that at least 50 per cent of students in seminaries will vote for them.

KARACHI: With 16 candidates on board to contest the upcoming elections for the Sindh Assembly and five for the National Assembly, the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jumaat (ASWJ) has started its campaign in full gear with wall chalking and corner meetings in its favourable areas.

Although the party is participating for the first time in the elections, its leaders are confident that they will win from their strong hold areas and give a tough time to its opponents in other parts of the city.

Contesting from the platform of the recently established Muttahida Deeni Mahaz (MDM), the ASWJ will contest elections for both the national and provincial assemblies to make Pakistan an Islamic and welfare state in the true sense, said the organisation’s Karachi chief, Maulana Aurangzaib Farooqui. “Giving relief to the poor and fighting oppression will be the first task,” said Farooqui, who is contesting elections on PS-128 of Landhi, Mansehra Colony and Quaidabad.

Party leader Maulana Akber Saeed while talking to The Express Tribune said that his organisation has always played a pivotal role in the former elections by supporting the political parties which were in the previous governments. The organisation, however, was always ignored, he said.

“We campaigned for the Pakistan Peoples’ Party in the previous elections but we were labeled as terrorists in their government,” said Saeed. He added they are strong in areas of Landhi, Sohrab Goth, Orangi Town, Baldia Town, Keamari, Shershah and Ittehad Town.

According to Saeed , they are supported by 50 per cent of the students in the big seminaries of the city, who are from the Deobandi school of thought. The organisation is hoping of victory on PS-126, PS-128, PS-129 of Sohrab Goth and Landhi, PS-89 of Keamari, PS-92 and Ps-93 of SITE town.

The leaders said that ASWJ is willing to make alliances and seat adjustments with all the political parties, excluding those who are their ideological opponents. “We are trying to build a set up in which the religious parties don’t cut each other’s vote bank.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2013.