Battleground Azizabad

The by-poll scheduled for April 23 in Azizabad could set out the plan according to which the upcoming political battle Karachi will unfold. Just the fact that there is uncertainty over the outcome of the election is significant. NA-246, vacated after Nabil Gabol who won on an MQM ticket in 2013, quit the party and resigned from the National Assembly in February 2015, has since 1988 been considered a ‘safe’ MQM seat, one that the party has swept time after time. The challenge put up this time by the PTI indicates just how the pressures on Altaf Hussain and his party have so rapidly built, notably since the police and Rangers operation against crime began in the city in 2013. The pressure has grown since the raid on the Nine Zero headquarters and the televised confessions only days later of murder convict Saulat Mirza. Altaf Hussain has been speaking of resignation as party chief and Imran Khan has been lashing out against him with characteristic venom. While the Rangers operation against the MQM is on-going, PTI has also demanded that the NA-246 by-poll be held under the supervision of the Rangers and the army. This will certainly raise alarm in MQM ranks which will cry foul as the MQM’s iron hold on Karachi is under threat, and the results from NA-246 will play a role in establishing where it stands. Questions arise as to whether the time of politics based on primarily ethnic factors may be over. Many parties are involved in such politics, with the problem not limited to the MQM. It would be simplistic to look at Karachi’s long and bitter war in just these terms.
Yet as April 23 approaches, the pre-poll rhetoric is not encouraging. The MQM and PTI leaders’ attacks on each other are often framed around personal behaviour and approaches. These are not insignificant; we hear such attacks and counter-attacks each time an election approaches. This has become our political culture. But given the gravity of the situation in Karachi and the necessity of pulling our largest city and commercial hub away from insanity, we must call for wisdom and maturity. As the challenger and as a party that has carved out a niche for itself in Karachi very quickly, the PTI needs to tell us how it will change ground realities in a city that has faced repeated chaos. This is what its residents wish to know. This is as true for the voters of Azizabad as for the others who form a part of the rapidly changing population of the city, which draws in migrants daily. Political leaders then need to move away from highly personalised attacks and treat the upcoming by-poll not as a kind of war but also an opportunity to lay out quite what they see as Karachi’s future and how this could be put in place.