New delimitations meant to break MQM’s vote bank: Altaf

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain said on Sunday the objective of new delimitations in Karachi was to break the vote bank of the MQM.He said the MQM could not be eliminated through a state operation or conspiracies. He was addressing a gathering at the Jinnah Ground in Azizabad here.

Altaf criticised the remarks of an honourable judge of the Supreme Court about fresh delimitation of electoral constituencies in Karachi to make sure that no party has a monopoly. He asked the audience to raise their hands if they rejected the remarks. The crowd raised their hands in unison and said that they rejected the remarks.

Altaf said Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry must take suo moto notice of the remarks of the said judge as “the right to give majority to any political party to take back the mandate rests with the people and not with any judge”.

He said it was misleading to say that the law and order situation in Karachi would improve by making fresh delimitations of constituencies. Law and order and electoral constituencies are two completely different things, he said.

He said the national flag cannot be hoisted in Balochistan and the law and order situation was worse in the KPK. Why delimitations are not being carried out in those provinces. He said the election issues should better be left to the Election Commission of Pakistan as it was their domain and did not fall within the purview of any court. Undue interference in the work of the Election Commission would compound the problem even if it was done with the best of intentions, he said.

”The Delimitation Act of 1974 makes census as the basic requirement for new delimitations. The Supreme Court has ordered for carrying out new delimitations of constituencies in Karachi alone without holding a census, which is totally against Section 9 of the Delimitation Act of 1974”.

He remarked that the Delimitation Act does not speak about the monopoly of any political party. The word monopoly is not present in any clause of the act.”How far is it justified to term the popular support and mandate of any political party as monopoly”? he asked.

”No court has the right to direct the Election Commission to change electoral constituencies in way that no party has a monopoly. It is the inalienable right of the people to give their mandate to the party of their choice. No one can deprive people of their basic right,” he said.

”Will the judges decide as to which party has a majority in a particular constituency? Different political parties have majority support in different cities of the country”, he said.“If the observation of the Supreme Court is valid in the case of Karachi, why such an observation was not made for the rest of the country?”

Referring to the judgment of the Lahore High Court on the Kalabagh Dam, Altaf Hussain asked if the courts would decide about the construction of dams. The people of Sindh have rejected the Kalabagh Dam and hence the LHC must take back its order.

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