With the election for the Karachi mayor heating up, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) Sindh President Haleem Adil Sheikh has announced that his party will remain “neutral” during the vote despite the party chairman’s decision to back Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman.
“We do not want to become part of a race in which someone else is winning,” Sheikh said while talking to the media on Monday. The former ruling party's leader also added that the PTI’s “race” was to rid the country of this “dirty system”.
The opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly said that after they rid the country of the “dirty system” then fresh local body elections should be held in the country under a uniform system and then the PTI will enter the race. “Right now, it is up to the PPP or Jamaat or whoever [gets the seat] we are out of the mayor election.”
Meanwhile, PTI’s union council chairmen have also announced that they would not vote for the JI candidate in the mayoral election.
Elected chairman Asad Aman, said that the PTI’s Karachi leadership opposes the decision taken by the central leadership.
“We were not taken into confidence regarding the decision to form an alliance with the JI,” Aman said. But he added that they were with the PTI chairman and against the ruling PPP in Sindh.
“We have taken our decision independently. Close to 40 chairmen will not be in the City Council [of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation] on the polling day,” Aman also claimed. He added that if the PTI chief calls them then they can look into the matter.
While Imran Parwani, another UC chairman, said that they had to respond to their voters, adding that JI’s Naeem lied to the workers after meeting the PTI chief.
