ISLAMABAD: Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Saeed Ghani said that an attempt is being made under a conspiracy to make the recent local government elections in Karachi controversial.
Talking to media persons here outside the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) head office on Monday, he said that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had emerged as the single largest party in Karachi in the latest local government polls as the next mayor of the city would belong to the PPP.
He said the ECP the previous day had issued the notification of the winning candidates of the local government polls in the megacity. The ECP had withheld the results of the polls in 20 union committees in Karachi, he said.
Ghani, who is also the PPP Karachi Division president, said that PPP had secured 84 seats in the city while Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) had clinched 82 UCs. He told media persons that the PPP’s victory on two more seats in Karachi had been confirmed after the recounting of votes.
He said the ECP had unduly withheld results of polls on six seats in Karachi at the behest of Jamaat-e-Islami as such a decision should not have been taken in the presence of election tribunals. He said the ECP had decided to itself conduct the hearing of the cases of these six UCs.
Ghani informed media persons that local government elections in Karachi held on January 15 were the most transparent and fair polls in the history of the city. He said that not a single bullet was fired anywhere, whereas, no death was reported due to any violent incident during the polling in Karachi.
Ghani said that thousands of presiding officers and returning officers had performed their election duties in Karachi but none of them had been contacted by him either before the polls or after it to pressurise them.
He informed the journalists that the PPP would have won at least 125 seats in the local government election to form the next city government without the support of any other party had there been any plan by it to rig the polls.
He said the people of Karachi had completely rejected the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the latest polls as the PTI was also involved in the attempts to make the polls controversial.
He told media persons that the PPP had emerged victorious in such areas of Karachi where in the past it had traditionally won the previous elections.
He said the PPP had recognized the mandate of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Karachi as the latter should do the same to acknowledge the People’s Party’s victory in the megacity.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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