HYDERABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) candidates for chairmen and vice-chairmen of district councils and municipal and town committees in many districts of Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas divisions are set to win unopposed as the PPP’s candidates were the only ones to submit their nomination papers on Saturday.
The party has bagged seats in the district councils in Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Mirpurkhas, Sujawal, Tando Muhammad Khan and Umerkot districts unopposed. In Mirpurkhas, however, the election is confronted with the possibility of a delay if the Pakistan Muslim League – Functional (PML-F) opts to challenge it in the court.
The PML-F’s candidates for chairman and vice-chairman for Mirpurkhas district council, Javed Junejo and Muhammad Baksh Mehar, blamed the returning officer of bias in favour of the PPP. While talking to the media, they alleged that their forms were not accepted even though they had reached the returning officer’s office in time on Saturday.
In Hyderabad, the PPP’s Badar Memon and Bilal Laghari will head the district council as chairman and vice-chairman. Kashif Shoro, local government minister Jam Khan Shoro’s brother, has also been elected as Qasimabad Municipal Committee chairman and Iqbal Soomro as its vice-chairman. The PPP also secured Husri Town Committee in Hyderabad without going for a vote.
However, in Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC), which is the largest local government body in the district, the contestants from Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the PPP will face each other off. The former is destined to clinch a walkover on the PPP with its more than two-third majority in the HMC.
In Tharparkar, where the PPP has come uncontested on one municipal and four town committees, two town committees have also gone to the Arbab group of Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz unopposed.
The PPP’s contestants also won unopposed 31 other municipal and town committees of Jamshoro, Dadu, Thatta, Sujawal, Tharparkar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot and Tando Muhammad Khan districts. Meanwhile, in Badin, where a group of independent candidates led by Zulfiqar Mirza defeated the PPP, the electoral battle will be fought in district council Badin, one municipal committee and seven town committees.
