Four parties plan to rally for Karachi’s rights

With the common cause of pressurising the provincial government for Karachi’s due rights, leading opposition parties of Sindh have announced plans for anti-government protests and rallies over the next few days.

Speaking at a demonstration staged outside the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) office on Sharea Faisal on Friday, the party’s city division president, Firdous Shamim Naqvi, announced that PTI chief Imran Khan would lead a protest rally in the city on April 30 against Karachi’s deteriorating civic situation.

Titled the ‘Karachi March’, Naqvi said the rally would commence from Mazar-e-Quaid and stated that people would be out in force as they were fed up of hours-long power outages and persisting water shortages.

On the other hand, the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), whose sit-in staged outside the Karachi Press Club against the Sindh government for keeping the city ‘deprived of its due rights’ entered 16th day on Friday, is preparing to call for a “million-man march” in the next week.

Talking to The News, PSP spokesman Waseem Aftab the party’s movement had entered its second phase. “A mass mobilisation campaign has been initiated to prepare for the million-man march. Party workers have been asked to garner support for the success of the march.”

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has also announced staging a protest rally on Sunday against what the party described as the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party’s corrupt practices and discriminatory policies.

Another opposition party, the Jamaat-e-Islami will stage a sit-in outside the Governor House today as part of their protest campaign against the K-Electric.

The party has presented three demands; an end to the practice of overbilling, installation of meters for all consumers and a reduction in the base tariff in line with the one introduced by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra).