KARACHI: The swearing-in ceremony of newly elected Mayor Karachi Murtaza Wahab and Deputy Mayor Salman Abdullah Murad was held at Gulshan Jinnah Polo Ground here Monday.

Sindh Election Commissioner Ejaz Anwar Chauhan administered the oath to Wahab and Salman while Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Governor Kamran Tessori and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari were also present. On the other hand Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi boycotted the Karachi mayor’s oath taking ceremony in protest against alleged ‘rigging’ in local government elections.

The mayoral elections in the megacity were held on June 15 in which the PPP leader secured 173 votes while the JI’s Karachi Emir Engineer Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman bagged 160 votes.

Talking to media after the oath taking ceremony, PPP Chairman said that his party will continue its struggle to ensure rights of common people. He said PPP defeated the ‘politics of hatred’. The graveyards of Karachi are filled with PPP martyrs who laid their lives in fight against the undemocratic forces.

When this city was being taken hostage on a single phone call (from London), it was PPP workers who stood firm. “Those who are blaming us of rigging, we will respond to them through our performances,” he said.

Responding to his critics, Bilawal said PPP does not rig elections, but the fact is, PPP’s mandate has always been rigged particularly in 1979; its mandate was stolen in 1979, 1983, and 2001 polls. Today, the dictatorship has come to an end. Those who used to be the beneficiaries of dictators are now facing defeat, and they are accusing the PPP of rigging.

PPP Chairman vowed that he will get the issues of Karachi resolved through local government set up under Murtaza Wahab, within the next five year.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023