Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the next mayor of Karachi will be from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) as it clearly won the most seats in the city’s local elections earlier this year.
“The next mayor of Karachi will be ours, no matter how much noise is made on the issue,” Shah said while talking to the media after awarding prizes to the winners of the donkey cart race organized as part of the Karachi Games. Sunday at Fountain Square.
He did not name any of the PPP’s opponents but was apparently referring to Jamaat-e-Islami, which had secured the runner-up position in the LG polls in the city and was not satisfied with the election results.
The chief minister complained that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was moving slowly in completing the process of local body elections in the province.
He said that the ECP should not further delay the next phase of local elections in which candidates against specific seats and heads of municipal agencies need to be selected.
He also said that the delay in this regard is simply unacceptable as it has been almost eight months since local elections in the first phase were held in other districts of Sindh apart from Karachi and Hyderabad division.
He stressed that the ECP should not wait for by-elections to be held on vacant seats in Karachi, before holding elections to fill specific seats and elect mayors and other heads of various local bodies in the province. Be done.
Referring to the system of general elections, he said that the polls for the election of the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers are conducted immediately after the general elections without waiting for the by-elections for the vacant seats of the National and Provincial Assemblies.
He urged the ECP to immediately declare the stalled results of local body elections in respect of around 20 seats of Karachi so that the process of local body elections in the city could be completed without any delay. He said that PPP has 12 out of 20 seats in the city.
Warning about census
The chief minister warned that if his concerns about the enumeration process were not addressed by the concerned federal authorities, he would have no other option but to withdraw his government’s support for the ongoing digital census in the country. will
He said that in the 2017 census, the results of which were not accepted by the Sindh government, the federal authorities took the position that the provinces had no reasonable basis to reject the census campaign while the provincial officials did the counting themselves. were fully involved in the exercise.
He also said that officials from the district administration of his government were involved in the census campaign but the enumeration data was not being shared with them, so it was not accurate and transparent on his part. is one of the unfulfilled demands made to make .
He clarified that his government is not totally opposed to the census campaign as it should be carried out as an important national duty like the general elections, but the federal authorities should not ensure an accurate count of every resident of the province. of any ambiguity. .
Shah said that his government only wanted the census campaign to be conducted in an accurate, transparent and error-free manner as the mistakes that made the 2017 census campaign controversial should not be repeated. He said that the census campaign should be conducted in such a way that its results are acceptable to all the concerned constituencies of the province.
He added that the first and foremost requirement in this regard is to easily share census data with provincial authorities and heads of families for enumeration to ensure population accuracy.
He demanded that as part of the census drive, the National Database & Registration Authority should be involved in the campaign to ensure that all the bona fide eligible citizens of the country get their computerised national identity cards (CNICs) and the minors in the families get their B-forms.
He said that issuance of ID card and B form to all eligible persons in the country will be very helpful in ensuring accurate population count. He also said that the enumerators were apparently not fully trained and ready to conduct the census campaign, while the tablet computers they were given also had obvious technical flaws, as all such issues are common in the enumeration campaign. Should have been resolved earlier.
He pointed out that he has written twice to Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal to inform about his government’s concerns on the census campaign, while Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is also well aware of the issue.
Regarding the protest campaign of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, the Chief Minister said that peaceful protest is the right of every citizen, but during the protest in Sindh, no one is allowed to violate the law or abuse or use insulting language, otherwise the law will take its own hands. I will take Appropriate action should be taken against such elements. Governor Kamran Tesori and other provincial high officials were also present on this occasion.
