MQMP, JI fail to agree on joint efforts to resolve Karachi issues

KARACHI: Leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQMP) in a meeting held at the JI Karachi head-office Idara Noor-e-Haq on Wednesday could not agree on making joint efforts to resolve the issues being faced by the people of Karachi.

Both the parties, however, announced they would hold separate protests in the city. The JI will start a sit-in in front of the Chief Minister’s House today (Thursday) while the MQMP will hold a protest on January 9 against the ‘fake’ delimitation of UC constituencies.

Meanwhile, MQM-Haqiqi Chairman Afaq Ahmed announced that he will not become a part of the Muttahida.

JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has announced to hold a protest sit-in outside the Sindh Chief Minister’s House on Thursday as the Sindh government failed to meet the 24-hour deadline to withdraw the letter to the Election Commission of Pakistan seeking a further delay in the Jan 15 local government polls. The JI leader called for the sit-in at a press conference held at Idara Noor-e-Haq. Later in the day, an MQMP delegation led by Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui arrived at the JI Karachi office to invite the leadership to the MQM’s Jan 9 protest for delimitations.

On the occasion, the JI leader welcomed the delegation but reiterated his stance on the local bodies elections, flawed voters lists and delimitations. He said that corrections of flawed voters lists and delimitations are necessary and itself a basic demand of the JI but continuation of the democratic process was above all other demands.

He said that an elected mayor and local government setup was the due right of Karachiites and people could not be deprived of their due right on the basis that their other rights had also been violated.

The MQM delegation was also unable to respond to the question about the future of its coalition with the government if the government doesn’t respond positively to the MQMP’s demand on delimitations.

Earlier, while addressing the presser, the JI leader held the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and MQMP responsible for the miseries of Karachiites and socio-political problems in the city. The MQMP was hand in glove with the PPP when their coalition government had curtailed the powers of local government set-up in Karachi, he said.

Hafiz Naeemur Rehman recalled that it was again the MQMP in collaboration with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) when the flawed census results were notified — cutting the population of Karachi to half in the record. The PPP and MQMP exploited Karachi in all possible ways. The city has been in ruins as no political party ever owned the city except for the JI.

Now the city needs an elected mayor, elected chairmen, vice-chairmen and councillors in the Union Councils to resolve its burning issues on grass-root level, he said. Talking about the reported merger of various factions of MQM, he said that it won’t create any difference in the political arena as evidenced from by-polls in the city in which all political actors were exposed before the people.

Rehman said the PPP and MQMP wanted to get the local government elections postponed because both of them were afraid of the JI’s popularity among the Karachiites. He further said that the future of both the PPP and MQMP in Karachi was doomed because the two parties always enjoyed the rule, benefits and perks but never delivered. The JI will announce its future course of action at the protest outside the Chief Minister’s House, he said. On the occasion, he shed light in detail on the contribution of JI to the progress and development of the mega city.

After the meeting with the JI Karachi chief, MQMP Convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, while talking to the media, said that he was grateful to the Jamaat-e-Islami who welcomed the MQMP delegation for talks.

He said the MQMP and JI believe that basic democracy is indispensable in democracy while feudal democracy is a threat to basic democracy.

He said the population of Karachi has already been halved and voters lists had been issued incorrectly. There are places in Karachi where the population is less and the number of voters is more and places where the population is more and number of voters is less.

The MQMP leader said the Sindh government has carried out delimitations of the constituencies to achieve desirable results under a well-thought-out conspiracy. “We also want the elections to be fair, transparent and impartial in due course.”

He announced that the MQMP will hold a protest on January 9 against the fake constituencies.

MQM Haqiqi’s chief Afaq Ahmed, meanwhile, said that Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori had not contacted him and if he wanted to come, he should not talk about unification with the Muttahida.

“I will not become a part of any adventure against the will and emotions of the Mohajir nation,” said the Haqiqi leader while addressing a press conference at his residence in Karachi, adding that an MQMP delegation will come for a meeting with Haqiqi today [Thursday].

He made it clear that Haqiqi was not going to be a part of MQM unification.

“I went to Dr Farooq Sattar’s house to condole the death of his mother. A photograph is being circulated on social media with fake news that Haqiqi will be a part of the unification process,” he said and added that Haqiqi never had anything to do with the MQMP.

Afaq said that he had already shown concerns over the demarcation of constituencies.

He said that due to the uncontrolled street crimes, the people of Karachi should be given arm licences so that they could face looters and robbers. The families of those unfortunate persons who were killed in street crimes should be given financial compensation of Rs2.5 million each. He said that 56 people were killed in street crimes. The police chief says that the people should not resist mugging bids.