Daily Times

From its date of inception till today, the Pakistan People’s Party has been trying hard to emerge in Karachi city vigorously. Whether it got votes or not in Karachi city, it brought the downtrodden class members of the party living in Karachi to the senate and provincial and national assemblies. PPP brought Karachi’s sons to Islamabad to make them leaders, and among such names are dozens, including Shehla Raza, Waqar Mehdi, Saeed Ghani, Murtaza Wahab, Sherry Rehman, Qadir Patel, and Hakeem Baloch, who are all from the middle-class representation of Karachi, but today they represent Karachi not locally but internationally.

None of them is landlords or industrialists, but the PPP not only elected them from Karachi and sent them to Islamabad, but they were always identified as sons of Karachi; the majority of these leaders are movers and shakers in PPP politics. Even Sindh’s Chief Minister was born and raised in Karachi. He spent his entire life on the roads and streets of Karachi. A question mark is frequently raised on the development of Karachi as to why there are problems in the city, but this question should be directed at the MQM and Jamaat-e-Islami, who have continued to rule the city directly and indirectly for the last 40 years and have failed to solve Karachi’s problems.

Many pages could be written about the problems caused by Jamaat-e-Islam in the city by commercializing the city’s main roads, but one thing about Jamaat-e-Islami. It was seen positively that he never complained or told us that they were authority less while they had the JI mayor in Karachi because they used their authority very well during the days, they had mayorship of Karachi as today most of the roads where we witness traffic jams, is all because of JI’s policy of commercialization. On the other hand, Karachi also witnessed the rule of MQM’s mayor and Nazim, and during the Musharraf era, the Nazim of Karachi had more powers than Sindh’s chief minister. But in the same period, we saw amenity plots being made. MQM’s offices, plazas, and buildings were built on parks and sports grounds during the same period. The sites that were marked for sewerage treatment plants, were turned into colonies.

Today, the anti-PPP forces are in a state of panic because the politics of hatred is no more working in Karachi
the politics of development has begun. PPP is the only guarantee of development in the city today, and on the 15th of January the sun will set with the defeat of anti-PPP forces in Karachi, and the next mayor of Karachi will be Jayla.

Another party named PTI is also contesting the local body elections in Karachi. This party has been in power for almost four years. There is no single project that this party has planned or executed in Karachi. There were only false promises that Imran Khan kept making to this city. Sometimes he promised 1100 billion rupees in projects, sometimes 1000 billion worth of projects, but no plan of one rupee has been implemented in Karachi. What this party did to Karachi can be gauged from the fact that Imran Khan used to visit the city only for picnics, and hardy visited Karachi 4 times in his entire four-year tenure.

Until a few years ago, MQM had the mayor here in Karachi, PTI was in government at the center, the PPP did not even have a single councilor seat in Karachi’s Korangi district, which has been MQM stronghold, regardless of the fact that PPP didn’t have mandate but it initiated flyovers, development schemes and roads in district Korangi and other district which then were considered as strongholds of MQM, where there used to be traffic jams for hours, today it takes a few minutes to pass from there, where MQM used to have their candidates won unopposed, today PPP candidates are winning elections unopposed Not only this, but by setting up an institution like NICVD in Karachi and making its emergency points all over Karachi, the PPP proved that crying and complaining for the authority and power was only to fool the people, if there is a will for development then nothing is impossible, PPP didn’t complaint for authority while initiating development works in areas of Karachi where development is the primary responsibility of Federal Govt as it collect taxes from these areas. Pakistan People’s Party went and worked on its own for the development of Karachi where even it was federal institutions mandated. The PPP-led Sindh government used Sindh’s resources even in cantonment areas, as evidenced by the expansion of Sharah e Faisal. Another example is Karachi’s Cantt Station, apart from this, the Sindh government has done billions of rupees worth of development work in DHA and Clifton Cantonments for example Punjab Chowrani underpass and submarine underpass are two such examples, and count dozens of other such projects in federally administer areas of Karachi where Sindh Govt took responsibility and invested its resources in development.

Be it Punjab Chowrangi Underpass or Submarine Flyover PPP never looked at whether these are federally run areas or not, where no one was working, PPP went ahead, today PPP office bearers are winning unopposed in local elections from areas where usually no party had candidates as MQM was the only party that used to be a mover and shaker of these areas and today it is struggling to find candidates even. The victory of the PPP in the local body elections is visible because, in the last few years, the number of development projects that the PPP started and completed in Karachi was never done by any party before. Today, the anti-PPP forces are in a state of panic because the politics of hatred is no more working in Karachi and the politics of development has begun. PPP is the only guarantee of development in the city today, and on the 15th of January the sun will set with the defeat of anti-PPP forces in Karachi, and the next mayor of Karachi will be a Jayla. Pakistan Zindabad. Tweets @ShahzadmemonPPP

The writer tweets at @ShahzadmemonPPP.