Political rhetoric: MQM demands census before LG polls

The party will kick off its election campaign with a public rally in Hyderabad today.

HYDERABAD: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has demanded the Sindh government to conduct a population census and delimitation before the local bodies elections.

The party’s leaders also demanded that the census be carried out under the supervision of the army or the judiciary. “You may conduct the census through the army or the judiciary but it must be carried out before the local government elections,” stressed MQM Rabita Committee member Haider Abbas Rizvi.



Rizvi was addressing a press conference on Thursday at Bagh-e-Mustafa ground where the party will hold a public meeting today. Rizvi stressed that his party wanted a transparent and independent census without further delay. “Sindh’s urban population has so far been denied its mandate as those representing the rural mandate, run the government.” Rizvi reasoned that the province’s urban population was more than the rural population and that Karachi alone was home to half of the province’s population.

MQM’s deputy convenor, MNA Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, also warned of serious consequences if the Sindh government did not accept the urban mandate.

Bilawal’s remarks

Rizvi criticised remarks made by Pakistan Peoples Party’s chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari regarding former president Pervez Musharraf on Thursday. “It does not suit a party’s leader to make such remarks. Morality demands that a Muslim should pray for the health of a fellow Muslim who is ill.”

Rizvi decried Musharraf’s ongoing trial, saying that he was being tried in isolation.”The parliament, judges, generals and politicians who abetted his actions should also be implicated in the case.”

Siddiqui was of the view that, “The process of Musharraf’s trial appears to be one of revenge in the name of justice”.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2014.