Excluding MQM: PPP leader proposes alliance for LG polls

Qadir Patel says PPP, PML-N, PTI, PAT and JI should join hands for peace in Karachi.

KARACHI: A senior leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has suggested forming a grand alliance with several political outfits, excluding the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), for the local bodies’ elections.

In an effort to bring peace to Karachi, central leader of PPP Sardar Qadir Patel said his party could form an electoral alliance with Pakisan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat Islami (JI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT).

“On the behalf of PPP, I suggest that PTI, PAT, PML-N and JI forge an alliance, so that the terrorists lose their fake mandate and the real peacemakers come into power,” he told participants at a meeting held in memory of the martyred activist of JI Dr Pervaiz Mehmood at Karachi Press Club on Sunday.

Dr Mehmood, a former Town Nazim of Liaquatabad, was shot dead in front of his house in Karachi’s North Nazimabad area on September 17 last year.

Qadir Patel said some elements have snatched the real mandate of Karachi and have held its people hostage.

Trying best to avoid a direct mention of the name, Patel, a former lawmaker, used words like terrorists, mandate snatchers and extortionists.

“The alliance will not be against MQM, but now we do not let anyone to snatch the mandate of real political parties,” he said replying to a query from The Express Tribune.

When asked about the MQM being PPP’s coalition partner in the past, Patel said “We were bearing them for the sake of Karachi.”

Earlier, Muhammad Hussain Mehanti of JI addressing the conference said the PML-N government must continue the Karachi operation. “If the government stops the Karachi operation, the city will be captured by the terrorist organisation again,” he said without naming the terrorist organisation.

PTI lawmaker Hafeezuddin Advocate said the citizens of Karachi have been bearing the expense of Rangers for 22 years but the result is zero in terms of peacekeeping.

“The government should depoliticise the Karachi police instead of bearing the expenses of a paramilitary force,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 16th, 2013.