Farooq Sattar claims some constituencies drawn to illegally favour the PPP. PHOTO: EXPRESS
Terming it a rigging done before the polls, the MQM leader claimed that the new delimitations in some urban parts of the province were illegal and biased. He alleged the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party of scheming to alter MQM's vote bank in Karachi, Mirpurkhas and others parts of the province.
Accompanied by Barrister Dr Farogh Naseem, Sattar filed two petitions with the province's top judiciary against the government's move of demarcating the constituencies for the local bodies' polls. The provincial government has fixed the number of union councils in each district rather than deciding them on the basis of population, he said.
He pleaded with the court declare the delimitations null and void as they were, according to him, tantamount to a pre-poll rigging. Talking to the media outside the SHC, Sattar said that parts of rural areas were merged with parts of urban areas and vice versa. He suspected a conspiracy being hatched. However, he believed that the court will take action against it. "We knocked at the doors of the election commission to get justice, but in vain," he said.
Petition filed against MQM in SC
Meanwhile, Maulvi Iqbal Haider approached the Supreme Court's Karachi Registry for an urgent by-election in the constituencies that fell vacant after the acceptance of resignations of MQM lawmakers. Haider contended that the resignations submitted by the lawmakers belonging to the party cannot be put on hold nor can they be taken back.
He asserted that the resignation saga was an attempt to hamper the proceedings on the ongoing Rangers-led targeted operation in the city. Speakers of national and provincial assemblies, chairperson senate and others have been made party in the case.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 16th, 2015.
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