ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has claimed that the party will clinch up to 17 National Assembly seats from the Karachi metropolitan area in the upcoming general elections, on the basis of development work, role in the holding of fresh census as well as reorganisation of the party after merging other factions.

“Although we have some reservations over the digital census in the country, it was still MQM-P’s great achievement and success to hold the census in the country, where the prime minister-led coalition government tried to listen to our viewpoints and tried to address it, which resulted in increasing the number of provincial seats by four and National Assembly by one seat,” said Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Syed Aminul Haque while talking to a select group of journalists.

He further said that the country needs free, fair, transparent, and timely general elections, but some delay could not be ruled out as delimitations would require time to complete.

He said that the MQM-P has still some reservations, but due to the party efforts, the increase in the population of Karachi has been recorded which would result in increasing the number of one NA and four provincial seats, which was greatly appreciated by the people of the metropolitan.

The general elections in the country may be held by mid-February 2024, before completing delimitation, said the minister, adding that the MQM-P offices are being opened and all factions are merged which would give benefit to the party to re-claim its 2013 general election position and it may clinch up to 17 NA seats from Karachi out of 22.

Replying to a question, MQM-P leader and the federal minister said that they have proposed Shoaib Siddiqui’s name for the provincial caretaker chief minister of Sindh and Kamran Tessori for caretaker prime minister.

He further said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is more flexible compared to other political parties and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif tried his best to take all allies on board. PML-N is a major political party and must have a say in the appointment of the caretaker prime minister, he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023