KARACHI, Feb 25: As the election fever dies down, people start looking towards the Pakistan People’s Party leadership for a solution to their problems and expect that the promises made during the electioneering will soon be fulfilled.

Lyari has suffered a lot during the last decade because of the negligence of successive governments. Its basic problems such as shortage of water, rampant unemployment, frequent power failures and outdated sewerage system have remained unsolved.

With growing civic problems in Lyari, unrest was simmering among its residents long before the elections were held. Many people had started blaming the party’s elected representatives of local bodies for their miseries. As a result, a dissent group of workers decided to contest the elections as independent candidates.

But the situation changed abruptly after the assassination of the party’s chairperson Benazir Bhutto and the party once again emerged as a formidable force in the former district south by securing a record number of votes.

Sardar Nabil Ahmad Gabol has set a record of sorts by obtaining 76,000 votes from national assembly constituency (NA-248) in Lyari. Both MPAs-elect Rafiq Engineer and Dr Salim Hingoro also performed equally well by securing more than 40,000 and 42,000 votes on PS-108 and PS-109 seats, respectively.

In the face of multiplying socio-economic problems a tough time is ahead for the PPP local leadership to address the chronic issues being faced by the residents of Lyari and old city areas, political observers admit.

In addition to perennial civic problems, there is a need to maintain law and order in the area as people are perturbed over a marked increase in burglaries, robberies, snatching of cellular phones and encounters which have become the order of the day. They expressed concern over the sale of narcotics in their localities.

Chawkiwara, Kalakot, Bagh-dadi, Shah Beg Lane and Kalri residents, who have always voted for the party, are now fed up with the activities of the crime mafia.

They have reposed their confidence in the PPP by casting votes and hoped that the party leadership would take stern action against criminal elements and restore law and order. They said that police were fully aware of the fact that drugs were being sold openly.

Some non-government organisations working in the area put the blame of mounting civic problems on the elected representatives of the town administration and the city government.

Their representatives said that the town administration and the city government failed to address their grievances.

However, some elderly residents of Nawabad said that the problems had been multiplying because of rapid growth in population.

Most of the area people live in small houses. The common man could not afford to move to any better place due to financial constraints.

A PPP supporter acknowledged that people had been disgruntled because of multifarious problems in Lyari.

But he was confident that the party would make all out efforts to address their grievances. Encroachment, deteriorated roads, water shortage, overflowing gutters, unemployed youths, narcotics, and illegal arms, etc were the major problems he referred to.