KARACHI: A day after the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf announced its unconditional support for the Jamaat-i-Islami in the Karachi mayor election, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party on Sunday questioned the JI’s claim of having a majority in the next City Council and said that majority of elected representatives of the PTI would stay neutral.

Speaking at a press conference here, Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Saeed Ghani, who is also the Karachi president of the PPP, sounded confident about making their candidate successful and claimed that a majority of elected members of the PTI won’t vote under the party line.

“No matter what the PTI has announced in support for the JI for the upcoming mayoral election, the majority of PTI’s 43 union committee chairmen will not vote for JI candidate for Karachi mayor,” he claimed.

He also said that he had inside information that there was a ‘serious divide’ within the PTI, which would ultimately benefit the PPP candidate.

Saeed Ghani says many JI members also have reservation over Hafiz Naeem’s attitude

“PTI’s elected UC chairmen in their party meeting had made it clear that they wouldn’t support the JI in the upcoming election. The majority of 43 newly elected UC chairmen of the PTI have made up their mind to stay neutral in the mayoral poll,” he said.

“PTI Chairman Imran Khan and the JI Karachi chief are both disappointed by the situation. I even came to know from some JI friends that many fellow party members have serious objections at Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman’s attitude,” he claimed.

His press talk appeared to be more about highlighting rifts within his rival parties suggesting bright prospects for the ruling party’s candidate for the mayoral slot.

‘PPP needs nine votes to win mayoral poll’

However, he admitted lacking numbers in the City Council to prove majority unlike the JI, which claimed to have 191 council members after the PTI’s support.

“The PPP and its allies would have 173 members in the city council,” he said. “The PPP is just short of nine members for winning the mayoral election.”

Responding to a question about alleged detentions of PTI’s elected members by the PPP government to change their loyalties under coercion or keeping them away from the mayor elections, Mr Ghani called it a bundle of lies. “The Sindh government doesn’t need to detain PTI’s UC chairmen to prevent them from voting.”

Responding to another question about an allegation levelled by the JI Karachi chief that the delimitation of constituencies was done by the Sindh government in order to do favour to PPP candidates, Mr Ghani said the PPP government had earlier carried out delimitations before 2013. But afterwards, when the Sindh Local Government Act 2013 was challenged in court, the judiciary authorised the Election Commission to carry out delimitation, he added.

He recalled that PPP-led Sindh government for the first time had done delimitation in 2013 which was declared null and void by the court. The 2015 local government elections in Sindh were held on the basis of delimitations carried out by the Election Commission, he said.

He said that the latest local government elections were also held on the basis of the delimitations carried out by the ECP. The Sindh government had determined the total number of local councils in the province as per law, he added.

Responding to a question, he said the JI candidate should become mayor if he gained the confidence of majority of City Council members, but if the party failed to secure the desired votes, they should respect the mandate of the other party. And then the JI leader shouldn’t accuse the PPP of illegally occupying the city, if PPP’s candidate won the mayoral election, he added.

He said PPP’s ticket holders were also Karachiites like the candidates of any other party in Karachi.

PPP-Sindh general secretary Waqar Mehdi said on the occasion that a consultation process for finalising a PPP candidate for Karachi mayor was under way.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2023