JI only won polls in Karachi either due to MQM’s boycott or during dictatorial regimes: Saeed Ghani

JI only won polls in Karachi either due to MQM’s boycott or during dictatorial regimes: Saeed Ghani

Karachi : Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister, Saeed Ghani, has said that Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) won elections in Karachi only under two conditions in the past that is when Muttahida Quami Movement boycotted the polls or during the dictatorial regimes in the country.

The Sindh Labour Minister, who is also PPP Karachi President, stated this while speaking at a press conference here at the committee room of the Sindh Assembly on Monday. He was flanked by PPP’s candidates for Karachi Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab, Deputy Mayor Salman Abdullah Murad, and party’s nominees for the posts of chairman in 13 towns of Karachi.

Ghani said that all the concerned quarters in the country condemned May 9 violent incidents and demanded action against the elements involved in vandalism. In contrast, the JI, its central Amir and Amir of its Karachi chapter spoke in favour of the same elements, he said.

He said that JI Karachi Amir considered that May 9 incidents were a conspiracy to prevent him from becoming the next Karachi mayor. “It now seems that Yasmin Rashid, Mahmoodul Rasheed, Ali Muhammad Khan, Shehryar Khan Afridi, and other PTI leaders were arrested under the same conspiracy to stop Hafiz Naeem from becoming mayor,” he said.

Ghani told journalists that the newly elected Union Committee Chairmen of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf before May 9 had announced that they would not vote in favour of JI’s mayoral candidate as this decision could be verified from the internal sources of PTI.

He recalled that soon after results of January 15 Karachi’s local government elections were announced, the PTI leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi unconditionally announced support for JI. However, several people from the PTI had reacted against this decision, he said.

He said that audio message attributed to PTI’s local government representatives had lately gone viral, in which they announced their decision of not giving vote to JI’s mayoral candidate. “Keeping in view this entire situation it is my advice that a team from NICVD should remain on standby at the venue of mayoral election on the polling day,” he said.

The Sindh Labour Minister said it was beyond his comprehension that what happened to JI’s popularity beyond Karachi’s Toll Plaza. Even PTI won seats from Hyderabad but the JI won the elections only during undemocratic regimes, he said.

He told media persons that merely three UC Chairmen of PTI were imprisoned due to their involvement in different criminal cases. “We have repeatedly stated that it is the solemn responsibility of our government to produce them in the City Council on the polling day,” said Ghani.

However, it is not the government’s responsibility to make sure that PTI’s UC Chairmen also vote in favour of the JI, he said. “But perhaps Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman wants that we should assume this responsibility as well,” he said.

He said that as JI Karachi leader had gone to Lahore residence of anti-state Imran Khan to get his support the PPP had the similar right to contact elected representatives of people for getting their votes in the mayoral poll. Ghani sad that Hafiz Naeem after sensing his likely defeat in mayoral election had been attempting to promote politics of hatred, ethnicity, and bias in the city.

He said that even the JI’s own newly elected local government representatives who didn’t favour such negative politics wouldn’t vote for Hafiz Naeem. Ghani said the JI Karachi leader had falsely assumed that he would secure votes from the PTI’s UC Chairman after getting assurance to this effect from Imran Khan. He said the JI leader should not expect to get votes from the PTI’s UC Chairmen when not even wife and servants of Imran Khan listened to the former prime minister.

Ghani urged the JI Amir to honour the PPP’s mandate as the party that had won most number of seats in Karachi. He maintained that PPP had generally won the local government elections in such areas of the city where it had won the polls in the past.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP’s candidate for mayoral election, Barrister Murtaza Wahab, said that politics of hatred and division had never served the people of Karachi. He said that Karachi was considered the mini Pakistan as the Karachiites had rejected the politics of hatred.

Barrister Wahab said that he himself and PPP’s candidate for Karachi Deputy Mayor were both born in Karachi. He said that he been had serving as the Sindh Chief Minister’s Law Adviser for the past four years and remained Karachi Administrator for 15 months but despite having this influential status, he didn’t have the means to use billboards in the city for his own publicity. In contrast, the JI Karachi leader spent hundreds of thousands of rupees on his outdoor publicity in every part of the city, he said.