Pasban-e-Pakistan general secretary and candidate for NA-246 Usman Moazzam has asked the voters of Karachi to vote for ‘Karachi province’ on April 23 to turn a new chapter of progress and prosperity of the mega city.
Addressing a big rally here on Sunday, he said the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), Pakistan Tahreek Insaf (PTI) and Jamaat e Islami (JI) should accept that they had failed to serve the city and they should withdraw their candidates in favour of Pasban.
He said from the income of Karachi, Raiwand Mahal and SurreyPalace had been built but the people of Karachi were still deprived of electricity, water, public transport, education and healthcare. He said the people of Karachi did not want a university in charity and Bahria Housing Scheme. He said Karachi did not need Zakat but its due rights, and Pasban would ensure the same.
He said Pasban-e-Pakistan demands ‘Karachi province’, as the growing problems of this mega city duly needed a new administrative set-up to resolve them. He said to cater the urban life needs of Karachi it was necessary to make it a new province; however, both the MQM and PPP were just scoring political points on this vital issue. These two parties are only focused to further increase the distance between Sindhis and Muhajirs so that they could secure their respective vote banks.
Pasban leader said the people of Karachiites had been facing immense problems due to this fixed match between the MQM and PPP. He said there was majority of Urdu speaking people in Karachi, but it was also a major city of Sindhis, Punjabis, Balochs, Siraikis, Kashmiris and other nationalities. He said in case Karachi was made a new province, it would have its own legislative assembly to make laws for the city so that the Karachiites could be facilitated.
He reminded that Karachi had more population than Balochistan province. Its economy was developed enough to run the port city on local taxes and also spend generously on the development of Karachi, he added.
He said making Karachi a province would not result in so-called flowing of the rivers of blood, because this demand was not made by the MQM but by the Pasban. He said the MQM had never been serious in its politics; however, Pasban fully believed that a prosperous Karachi was a must for prosperous Pakistan.
He said there were so many examples in the world that their mega cities were run under special administrative set-ups. He clarified that the demand of Pasban was not an ethnic ‘Muhajir’ province but a multi-cultural ‘KarachiProvince’.
He said the funds received by the provincial government were not spent on Karachi but distributed in other areas.
He said as per international principles a city with population of more than 1 million is termed a mega city, and as per this formula Karachi is a triple mega city. However, the federal government only sees cities like Islamabad for mass transit bus projects. He said Lahore has been changed from a Chingchi rickshaw city to Metro bus city, but Karachi is still a Chingchi city.
