ISLAMABAD: Key government ally Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has said the party has been left with no option but to take to the streets in protest against the recent decision of the federal cabinet to approve the controversial National Census-2017.

“What is the logic for us now to stay in the government? You (the government) have not implemented even a single point agreed with us,” said MQM Convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui while addressing Prime Minister Imran Khan at a news conference with federal Minister for Information Technology Aminul Haq at the National Press Club on Thursday.

“Tell us what should we do? Why are we in the government? Why are we in the cabinet? If we are not heard in the parliament, then tell us, should we come out of the elected houses? Is coming on the roads only way to seek justice and raise voice against excesses?” Mr Siddiqui said, while addressing Prime Minister Khan and his ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). The MQM leader, however, did not give a categorical reply when asked whether or not his party had decided to quit the ruling coalition.

He simply said they knew that their protest would have no significance if they stayed in the government. He said a consultation process was going on in the party to decide the future course of action, adding that “we are not in a hurry”.

Khalid says govt has failed to implement even a single point agreed with it

“We know the government is intact because of our seven votes (in the National Assem­bly). We do not want to give an impression that we are blackmailing the government,” he said. He said the option to quit the government was always available to the party.

Replying to a question, the MQM leader rejected the possibility of joining the opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) which had already launched an anti-government campaign.

Mr Siddiqui said that there was no other party in the country whose political offices were still closed, whose activists were still missing and facing imprisonment without trial for several years. He said if the MQM’s demands were not justified, then why the government had accepted them in the first place.

The MQM leaders held the press conference two days after the federal cabinet approved the 6th National Census-2017 with a dissenting note submitted by the party.

Besides the MQM, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) also rejected the cabinet’s decision to validate the provisional census results without an audit in randomly selected blocks to remove “massive lacunae in the controversial” headcount exercise carried out three years ago as per the agreement with the parliamentary leaders of the Senate to correct the controversial census results through a recount of the population in five per cent randomly selected population blocks.

“If we cannot count ourselves, how can we get our rights?” the MQM leader questioned, while demanding the formation of a judicial commission comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan to probe the “fake and rigged census”.

Mr Siddiqui alleged that the population of Sindh’s major cities, particularly that of Karachi, had always been shown 25 to 50 per cent less than the actual count in the census. He claimed that the actual population of Karachi was 25 million whereas in the census, it had been shown as 16 million only.

“Our doubts about the census had proved to be true,” he said, adding that the party had approached the courts and showed its concerns even before the start of the census process.

He said the MQM had gone to the court with objections and with historical evidence after witnessing arrangements for the census.

“When we were joining the government, the census was our first point. The government has approved the census despite MQM’s reservations, ignoring all its promises made to us,” he said.

He said the PTI at present held the biggest mandate in Karachi, but it seemed that the party had no realisation of it. The people of Sindh, he said, were completely disappointed with the present government.

“Sindhu Desh has been created and only a formal announcement is awaited. The census has put a seal on it,” the MQM leader said, alleging that the Sindh Secretariat had become a “Sindhi Secretariat”.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2020