Tens of thousands supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) on Saturday rallied here with their central leaders - Imran Khan and Sirajul Haq - seeking public mandate through the December 5 local government polls to rule the mega city at local government level. In the PTI-JI rally kicked off with a view to mustering support for the two parties' candidates taking part in the local bodies' elections in a city of teeming millions.
The rally moved, inching towards its destination nearby Mazar-e-Quaid, vowing to dissipate climate of 'fear' in the metropolis. Siraj-ul-Haq and Imran Khan along their local leadership travelled on a truck rooftop from Karachi airport to Mazar-e-Quaid through different halts, waiving hands to jubilant supporters including women, children and youth, asking them for an overwhelmed support in the polls for founding a 'new Karachi' and peace.
Chairman PTI, Imran Khan urged the public to come out in overwhelming numbers and vote for change and peace. He pledged to the citizens to reform police and wipe out outlaws and crimes from the metropolis for good, if his member elected to the mayorship. He slammed Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif for being a 'spectator' to the corruption of former President, Asif Zardari. He also accused Zardari of committing a Rs 6 billion corruption during his tenure spanned from 2008 to 2013. Rejecting the proposed tax surge, he said Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was fleecing the nation through weak economic policies.
"In the last two years, Ishaq Dar made Rs 430 billion of property in Dubai," he told a charged crowd, saying that soaring debts would haunt the poor at the end. He asked the citizens to reject the ruling elite that had ravaged them for the last several decades.
Imran Khan vowed to unite the city with its diverse ethnicities and end the divisions contrived by anti-social forces to rule unchallenged. "Karachi needs peace not divisions," he said, adding that his party would reform the highly politicised police and eliminate land grabbers mafia after coming to power.
Citing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police's performance, he said the provincial ruling alliance made the law enforcers independent from political influence and would replicate its step in Karachi if attained public mandate. Senate committee like others has appreciated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police for its being free to maintain order. "We will correct Karachi, police first," he promised, saying that the independent police would make the Rangers' presence redundant and spur headways against the outlaws and end crimes across the board. He said the JI-PTI alliance with success in polls would ensure development, prosperity, water supplies and civic infrastructure in the city.
He also accused the PPP's ruling Sindh government for supporting land grabbers and China-cutting of plots and vowed to dismantle the alliance of land grabbers and rulers. On MQM, he said that the party was plotting a minus-one formula against its chief, residing in London for over decades. "Looking at the new Karachi is coming into existence," Siraj-ul-Haq told the cheering supporters, saying that the JI-PTI electoral alliance would not let the city slip into destruction and ruins. "This time around, there will be election, no selection," he said.
He said that the alliance would remedy the city's wounds that had been festering for the last 30 years. He vowed to turn Karachi into one of the modern and developed cities of the Muslim world. "We will turn Karachi into another Istanbul," he said, adding that the alliance would ensure generation of employment to the youth.
"People are trusting us and we will solve their problems and give them peace and development in return," he said, adding that the rulers had never done justice to the metropolis and abandoned it for once. "Citizens should vote on December 5 to bring the politics of status quo to an end," Siraj-ul-Haq urged. He termed Karachi the 'mother' of Pakistan. "Karachi is the mother of Pakistan, and if it is prosperous, Pakistan will also be prosperous," he said.
Comments
Comments are closed.