Aftermath of resignations: MQM rethinks strategy for LG elections

KARACHI:

Vowing to stick to their resignations, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) parliamentarians will rethink their strategy for the local government elections now that they have left the Sindh and National assemblies and the Senate.

Senior MQM leader and parliamentarian Syed Sardar Ahmed, who submitted his resignation on Wednesday, said that the party will take a decision on the local government polls in a day or two.

Fifty-one parliamentarians of the MQM submitted their resignations to the speaker of the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday. They cited their victimisation in the ongoing target operation and the Rangers support to the PTI in an attempt to marginalise the MQM one of the main reasons behind this move.



Ahmed lashed out at the Pakistan Peoples Party for bringing in amendments in the local bodies' ordinance, increasing the number of seats for the youth and allowing people with dual nationalities to contest.

The party is confident that, after the resignations, they will continue their political activities. "There are many people who are not in the assemblies but are continuing their political activities," said Ahmed. "We would keep raising voices for the people."

Another parliamentarian Yousuf Shahwani said that party will decide soon whether or not it will contest the local bodies' elections. The MPA from Baldia Town said that there was no use sitting in the assembly as they were being sidelined both by the Sindh government and the law enforcement agencies.

"We could not even talk for two minutes regarding our worker Hashim's death in the Sindh Assembly," he pointed out. "Also for two years, we had not received MPA funds for development in our constituency."

On being sidelined by the LEAs, Shahwani said that the targeted operation was the biggest example of this. The NA-246 by-polls clearly showed whom the authorities wanted to be in power, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2015.