After inaugurating the election office for the upcoming by-election in National Assembly constituency NA 245, former Karachi mayor and MQM-Pakistan deputy convener Waseem Akhtar demanded that the local bodies’ elections scheduled to be held in Karachi and Hyderabad on July 24 should be postponed.
“I think that local bodies’ elections should be postponed. If demarcation of the constituencies were corrected, then free fair elections would be possible. However, the population of UCs in our traditional constituencies is high while rural areas have been incorporated into urban areas. We have already approached the court and the election commission seeking solutions,” he said while talking to media persons.
The MQM-P has been demanding a fresh census and demarcation of constituencies on the basis of the census result. The former mayor said the residents of NA-245 had been associated with his party since its inception and this area had been one of the strongholds of the party.
This area was badly affected during the 1992 operation where people made sacrifices for the party, and the inhabitants of the constituency were imprisoned and martyred because they were struggling for their rights, he said.
Akhtar said the people of NA-245 would once again choose MQM-Pakistan in the by-election because they knew that it was the only party that on every forum raised its voice for the people of Karachi. “We have made agreements with national level parties to solve the problems of the people here.”
Akhtar said candidate Moeed Anwar whom his party had fielded was a resident of the area. Anwar was a former district chairman and for a long-time he had worked for MQM-P, he added.
Under Anwar’s leadership, said the former mayor, he had completed many development projects in this area and if the party got success in the by-election, he would work harder than he had done in the past.
