by Azfar-ul-Ashfaque in Dawn, Dec 24th, 2020
KARACHI: A day after the federal cabinet approved the sixth population census held in the country three years ago, Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal has rejected what he termed the controversial decision, saying the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and its coalition partner Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan have “sacrificed” the people of Karachi for their vested political interests.
Only on Tuesday, the federal cabinet approved the national exercise that took place in 2017 after a delay of almost two decades and decided to send the census report to the Council of Common Interests to get its final nod with consensus among the provinces. The MQM-P had submitted a dissenting note rejecting the census results and stating that the party would not accept delimitations under this census.
Speaking to the media outside the NAB courts on Wednesday, Mr Kamal condemned the cabinet’s decision and said that the number of voters in the city’s electoral rolls was more than the number of entire Karachi population showed in the census.
Lashing out at the MQM-P for merely submitting a dissenting note, he said it should have quit the government to prevent a “broad daylight robbery” on Karachi’s rights.
He said the MQM-P had run its entire election campaign on the issue of seven million people of Karachi missing from the result of the census, but it had not only acknowledged the decision of the cabinet but also become a part of it by submitting the dissenting note.
He said the PTI government existed because of the seven National Assembly seats of the MQM-P, but its “priority is personal interest, not the interest of the people of Karachi”.
Criticising Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government, he said the PM had adopted a dual policy as accountability references were being filed against political opponents but no reference was ever filed against MQM’s former Karachi mayor Wasim Akhtar.
He alleged that the PTI-led federal government was secretly supporting the PPP government in Sindh and in turn the PPP was supporting Mr Khan at the centre to rule Sindh with impunity. “PPP and PTI both are opposing each other in front of the media but are actually partners,” he said.
Mr Kamal said that the move to shift the headquarters of the national flag carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, to Islamabad from Karachi was unacceptable.
He said his party was under tremendous pressure from the people to launch a protest movement against “anti-Karachi decisions” for which he was formulating a strategy with his aides.
www.dawn.com/news/1597446/kamal-lashes-out-at-mqm-p-over-approval-of-census-results
