Campaigning: Turn street power into votes: MQM

Party leaders look forward to success in by-elections, local government polls

HYDERABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaders have asked their supporters to turn the party's street power into votes for victory in the upcoming local government polls in Sindh and by-elections in Karachi.

Talking to the media at the party's general workers meeting at Paqa Qila ground on Sunday night, MQM MNA Khalid Maqbool Siddiqi expressed hope that the party candidates would romp to victory in both the NA-246 by-elections on April 23 and the local government elections for the Cantonment Board of Hyderabad (CBH) on April 25.

"April 25 will be the day of our success because our rivals will already have been defeated in Karachi on April 23," he claimed.

The MNA credited his party for creating public interest in the by-polls, which are usually marked by a lack of enthusiasm. "Our political opponents wanted to create an atmosphere of tension and strife in the constituency but the MQM chief foiled their ambitions by welcoming their campaigns."

Rabita Committee member Abdul Haseeb Khan said that MQM supporters had gone through atrocities and imprisonment in Hyderabad but they still stood with the party. "We need votes more than slogans to win the elections," he asserted. "Only the Haq Parast will remain in Hyderabad and the others will run away."

The MQM also announced the names of the party candidates who will contest the local government elections in the eight wards of the CBH.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2015.