KARACHI, April 28: The core committee of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Saturday deliberated on the contentious local body election while also discussing a possible response to meet the deadline of April 30 given by the Supreme Court in this regard.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan and the Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah were at the helm in the CM House meeting held to sort out things that had created bad blood and accentuated acrimony in the metropolis.

The meeting also examined the gravity of the situation amid the continuing operation against armed criminals in Lyari where many personnel of the law enforcement agencies had also been killed along with the innocent civilians and political activists.

The meeting saw PPP represented by Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq, Agha Siraj Durrani, Ayaz Soomro and Rafiq Engineer. The MQM side was led by Dr Farooq Sattar, and included Dr Saghir Ahmad, Syed Sardar Ahmad and Kunwar Naveed.

It may be pointed out here that the PPP has maintained that it is not possible to hold local bodies election until the census and delimitation process is completed. There were also issues connected with the changes proposed in the system for making the system more functional and responsive.

According to sources, MQM was asking the ruling PPP to accept the proposals it had provided to the ruling party. In fact the PPP had also given its draft proposals to the MQM. The matter has remained unresolved owing to the differences in the power sharing formula.

Both sides were keen to swiftly move towards a conclusive decision and to give it legislative cover.

In view of the gravity of the situation due to the continuous blood letting and other crimes, MQM leaders are understood to have conveyed their serious concerns over the killings.

It must be mentioned here that President Asif Ali Zardari in a recent meeting with the coalition partners here had emphasized that it was the shared responsibility of all the political parties to help restore complete order in the metropolitan city while bringing the culprits to book.