KARACHI: Claiming his party was the only solution of problems being faced by Karachi, the Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Mustafa Kamal on Sunday criticised all three major political parties — Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and Pakistan Peoples Party — for ‘deceiving’ Karachiites through hatred only for ‘vested interests’.

In a women-only rally held in Bagh-i-Jinnah in the shadows of the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum, the PSP leader vowed to grab more than a million votes in the next elections for his party which was “becoming popular even after defeat in the 2018 general elections”.

The former Karachi mayor was most critical of the PTI chairman Imran Khan for “deliberately ignoring” Karachi and “befooling the people of the city” while being in the PM office.

He took up the three parties one by one and accused them of "selling the mandate of Karachi for power gain”.

Accuses PPP, Muttahida and PTI of ‘deceiving’ people

To strengthen his arguments, he showed on the large screen installed behind the rostrum some videos clips of former prime minister’s speeches which he had made during the 2018 election campaign in Karachi promising development of Karachi.

“And even after you were ousted, you had no words of embarrassment for your bad performance but enough time to justify the corruption of Farah Gogi [close friend of former first lady],” he said.

“You deceived the people of Karachi in the name of change. During three years of rule, you only ridiculed the people of Karachi. The people of Karachi are still living without water and electricity and my youngsters are still looking for an honourable way of life.”

The PSP chairman then turned to PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for ‘igniting’ politics of hatred through ‘triggering’ an ethnic debate on the floor of the National Assembly.

The PSP chairman showed the video of the former president’s speech in the National Assembly in which he had tried to prove people of Sindh as real founders of Pakistan and called that “migrants from India actually moved to Pakistan only to save their lives”.

“You tried your best to pitch Mohajirs and Sindhis against each other for your dirty politics,” he claimed.

“But you didn’t know that the people of Pakistan and Sindh cannot be made fool anymore. For more than 13 years, you have only looted and plundered and made this city rubble.”

He referred to the previous power partnership of the PPP and MQM and described it as the key reason behind the bloodshed between 2008 and 2013 in Karachi.

“And you two [PPP and MQM-P] are together again for the same dirty politics,” alleged Mr Kamal.

“The people of Karachi cannot forget how you two looted this city. Now these two parties are fighting for their survival.”

He appealed to the people of Karachi to give his party a mandate if they wanted to build their city.

Mr Kamal asked his each female party worker to turn at least 10 women into PSP voters in the next local bodies and general elections.

Earlier, the PSP president Anis Ahmed Kaimkhani called the party chairman Mr Kamal as the only leader who could bring the city out of crisis.

“Those, who believed in hatred and divide, have already failed and the city has witnessed how a man [Mr Kamal] who stood for a common man’s right brought people closer,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2022