News
Monday, August 08, 2011
Bowing to MQM demands irks PPP ranks in Sindh
* Handing over Karachi, Hyderabad to MQM likely to adversely affect PPP vote bank in interior Sindh
By Tanveer Ahmed
ISLAMABAD: At a time when Sindhi nationalists and Awami National Party (ANP) are protesting against the restoration of local government system 2001 in Karachi and Hyderabad, the move has also not received well by the ranks of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who believe the party has bowed to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) pressure.
Political analysts believe the MQM had been vying for the restoration of the local government system to consolidate its hold in Karachi and Hyderabad, the main urban centres of the Sindh province.
According to sources in the Sindh PPP Chapter, the party’s provincial ranks are annoyed with the decision, as they believe the MQM has brought the PPP to its knees over the issue.
Although the provincial leadership did not dare openly go against this decision, the resentment is running high over this move of the higher command to what they believed handing over Karachi and Hyderabad completely to the MQM.
Apart from the covertly annoyance of the Sindh PPP Chapter, the nationalist parties of the Sindh are overtly protesting against it by giving the call for protests and strikes in Sindh. The ANP has also rejected the PPP government’s move and called it the division of Sindh on linguistic grounds.
In the words of a high office bearer of the Sindh PPP; “High command has literally blackened the face of the party through such move which is tantamount to bowing down before the MQM”.
Sources in the PPP said that the main dispute between the two political parties was over the system of governance in these two major cities of Sindh as excluding Karachi and Hyderabad there left nothing for the two parties to confront.
In the local government system introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf, Karachi was converted into one district by dissolving all the five districts and Hyderabad was divided in many districts to lessen the influence of the PPP in both these cities.
The basic spirit behind revival of 1979 local government system was to restore the earlier position of Karachi and Hyderabad, which MQM fought tooth and nail. But by meeting demand of the MQM, the party has disappointed its vote bank in the entire Sindh, sources said.
The PPP sources said that this particular move could adversely impact the PPP vote bank in interior Sindh and in these two cities where jubilations had erupted following the revival of old commissionerate system when MQM parted ways with its government last month.
The PPP sources said that the revival of Local Government System 2001 has been basically done to restore peace in Karachi and hoped that it would also bring back the MQM into the government.
However, sources hastened to add that it could damage the PPP politically in its stronghold, the interior of Sindh, where this act has been construed as the division of Sindh. The sources regretted that the key Sindh urban centres have been given to the MQM, which is believed to be a party of the Urdu-speaking community with little or almost no penetration in Sindhi voters of the province.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk