Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister, Saeed Ghani, has said that an attempt is being made under a conspiracy to make the recent local government elections in Karachi controversial.Talking to media persons here outside the Election Commission of Pakistan head office on Monday, Ghani said that the Pakistan People’s Party had emerged as the single largest party in Karachi in the latest local government polls as the next mayor of the city would belong to the PPP.
He said the ECP the previous day had issued the notification of the winning candidates of the local government polls in the city. The ECP had withheld the results of the polls in 20 union committees in Karachi, he said.Ghani, who is also PPP Karachi Division President, said that PPP had secured 84 seats in the city while Jamaat-e-Islami had clinched 82 UCs. He told media persons that PPP’s victory on two more seats in Karachi had been confirmed after the recounting of votes.He said the ECP had unduly withheld results of polls on six seats in Karachi at the behest of Jamaat-e-Islami as such a decision shouldn’t have been taken in the presence of election tribunals.
He said the ECP had decided to itself conduct the hearing of the cases of these six UCs.Ghani informed media persons that local government elections in Karachi held on January 15 were the most transparent and fair polls in the history of the city. He said that not a single bullet was fired anywhere whereas no death was reported due to any violent incident during the polling in Karachi.
Ghani said that thousands of presiding officers and returning officers had performed their election duties in Karachi but none of them had been contacted by him either before the polls or after it to pressurize them.He informed the journalists that the PPP would have won at least 125 seats in local government election to form the next city government without the support of any other party had there been any plan by it to rig the polls.
