Muttahida Qaumi Movement Coordination Committee’s Deputy Convener, Dr Mohammad Farooq Sattar said here on Thursday that the forthcoming elections have been hijacked in the wake of fresh delimitation of constituencies prior to the polls, rigging and inaction agains those indulging in bomb blasts and killings.
Dr Sattar, who is also Muttahida’s candidate for NA-249, said that the terrorists, who created state within state, had rendered the caretaker government, Election Commission of Pakistan and other institutions of the country helpless and all of them have become powerless and had given up their responsibilities in the face of extremists and terrorists.
These views were expressed by Dr Sattar at a crowded news conference held here on Thursday at MQM’s Khursheed Begum Secretariat, Azizabad. MQM Coordination Committee deputy Convener, Ms Nasreen Jalil and members Raza Haroon, Kunwar Khalid Younus and Wasay Jalil were present on the occasion.
Voicing his concern over the changes being made in the polling scheme, polling stations and overnight transfers of polling staff stations at the behest of of a religious party, the MQM leader said that whatever was being done in this general election would not be good omen for the democracy and the country.
Terming the Elections-2013 `extremely different kind of elections of Pakistan’s history, he said that MQM due to some unavoidable circumstances was not traditional prepared to run its election campaign.
Dr Sattar said that MQM is the second big party of Sindh, third of the country and the biggest of Karachi and the people were aware of its repeated success in nine elections since 1987.
He, however, regretted that the elements who had suffered crushing defeats at the hands of MQM in the previous nine elections had not refrained from its conspiracy and under a new strategy targeted MQM, in particular. MQM was left at the mercy of criminal mafia, and under such a situation, it was not possible for MQM to hold a big rally in Karachi, he added.
Lashing out at all those parties which had suffered defeats in the last nine elections had not accepted MQM’s overwhelming victory, were contesting the elections with a wish to deliberately divide and snatch the MQM’s mandate.
Dr Sattar on this occasion disclosed that with a view to robbing the MQM’s mandate, a strategy was implemented in different phases which included delimitation of constituencies carried out for the second time on the basis of population census of 1998 and when filed a petition against the constituencies delimitation work in Sindh High Court, our petition was rejected just four days before the general elections and, thereby not providing an opportunity of approaching Supreme Court in this regard.
Dr Sattar said that the MQM would, however, approach Supreme Court in this connection after the polls.
He said that the act of carrying out delimitation work before the elections not only amounted to discrimination against MQM but it was also an attempt to close the electioneering field for the party.
The MQM leaders that at a time when candidates were filing their nomination papers, MQM candidate for a Hyderabad constituency, Fakhar-ul-Islam, was brutal murdered, its election rallies and offices were attacked, besides six bomb blasts were taken place at its election offices which including the one occurred near its headquarters `Nine Zero.
He said that those who created state within state through the acts of cowardice sent a message that they had decided that the MQM cannot be allowed to take part in the polls and were compelled to stop our electioneering to save precious human lives, but we began door-to-door election campaign and met different communities.
He said despite all such incidents of terrorism, the MQM because of its determination that it would not boycott elections continued its limited electioneering through social media, print and electronics media.
“The irony of the fact is that polling stations of those areas where operatives of the state are unable to nab the criminal elements and where Rangers personnel and MQM workers were brutally killed have not been declared as `sensitive’,” he said, adding that such an act amounted to rigging in the polls.
He said that the administration in order to please the defeated elements and the religious parties were trying to handover the power to terrorists and criminal elements through the polls whereas political a democratic process had been pushed towards wall and there was none to ask them.
Drawing the attention of democracy-loving circles, intellectuals and human rights organizations, Dr Sattar said that the MQM along with democracy and Pakistan were being towards a wall. MQM would put up its case before international commentators, he added.
Referring to the outcome of the coming elections, he said that a term called “Jhurloo” would continue to echo in the National and provincial assemblies that the Election-2013 were the most “Jhurloo” in the country’s history.
He asked whether the elections in which son of a former prime minister and a candidate could be kidnapped in the broad day light might be described, free, fair and transparent.
He said that from March till to-date, over 80 workers and sympathizers of MQM had been killed during electioneering, several parts of the city including Lyari, Pak Colony, Sohrab Goth, Old City Area, Manghopir, Baldia and parts of Scheme-33 had become no-go areas for MQM candidates and its workers whereas Nabil Gabol, an MQM candidate from Lyari, could not run his election campaign for a single in his constituency.
He deplored that although he had filed a petition in Sindh High Court and Supreme Court, seeking declaration of 133 polling stations of his constituency as the most sensitive, these polling stations had been declared as `normal’.
Dr Sattar said that MQM chief Altaf Hussain has appealed to the people to foil all such conspiracies by casting their votes in favour of MQM candidates on May 11 polls.
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