Ready for an upset?: In NA-257, strategic alliances to outwit MQM

The biggest concern here is the menace of extortionists.

KARACHI:

United we stand to make the undisputed champions fall - this seems to be the motto for the parties which have fielded a joint candidate in NA-257 to outwit the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

The ten-party alliance, led by Pakistan Muslim League - Functional (PML-F) and Pakistan Muslim League -Nawaz (PML-N), has put forth Shah Waliullah of the Muttahida Deeni Mahaz (MDM). Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM) also has high hopes of clinching the seat, even though this will be the party’s first foray into electoral politics. It has fielded its own candidate, Al Syed Hasan Jaffer Rizvi, and is hoping to amass votes from some members of the Shia community residing here, especially in Jaffar-e-Tayyar Society.



NA-257 lies to the north-east of Karachi, bounded to the north by scheme 33, on the south by Mehran Highway, Adamjee Road and Dawood Chowrangi and to the west by the airport and Model Colony. The constituency, which has the fourth-highest number of registered voters, comprises four provincial assembly seats - PS-121, PS-127, a fragment of PS-128 and the northern portion of PS-129.

Apart from the settled localities which fall under the Cantonment Board, there are a large number of goths and shanty towns. The constituency is ethnically diverse: Pashtuns, Balochis, Sindhis and the Urdu-speaking people live in scattered pockets.

The constituency will have 230 polling stations, including 894 polling booths, with  448 for men and 446 for women.

While talking to The Express Tribune, MDM’s candidate Shah Waliullah said, “Industries here are on the verge of extinction because of rampant extortion.” He added that nobody is spared - it doesn’t matter if you’re a big industrialists or the owner of a small shop. “In the absence of lasting peace, people have simply forgotten problems such as sanitation and potable water.”

MWM’s spokesperson, Sajjad Akbar, concurs. He said the scarcity of potable water and the absence of a proper sanitation system are the biggest problems in NA-257, apart from the daily bout of targeted killings and extortion threats. The land mafia also reigns supreme.



MQM’s Sajid Ahmed won the seat handily back in 2008. The party is once again hoping to win the seat on the basis of the development projects that were completed here over the last five years. They include a dialysis centre at the Sindh Government Hospital, three parks, two football grounds, underground tanks and primary schools in different neighbourhoods. A network of roads linking rural and urban localities was also completed during the last government’s tenure. Ahmed acknowledged the rise in extortion in NA-257, but pinned this on the Lyari gang war.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2013.