MQM____The Magnet Of Truth!

Although there have been several days since MQM regained its seat of NA-246 with a very big margin, yet there are many people including its anchorpersons & journalists who do not seem to be satisfied with its victory. “Although MQM has regained its seat with a reasonable good margin, but it has failed to secure as many votes as it did in 2013`s elections.” They argue.

Yes, it was very much expected that there would come such remarks about MQM`s performance after the by-election results. In fact, ever since Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamat-e-Islami (JI) announced to compete in the contest, these remarks had started coming up not only from MQM`s rival, but also from majority of the anchorpersons and analysts. For example, they said:

1-If MQM loses this seat, it would be a complete disaster/wind up of its politics from Karachi. “When MQM cannot defend its strong constituency, then what is the value of its other seats?”, they added; 

2-Eevn if MQM wins, but does not succeed in securing the same number of votes as it did in 2013, it would be termed MQM`s defeat in that case too.

Further, there were two more following presumptions for MQM:

3-However, if MQM not only wins, but also gets the same or more number of votes than in 2013, it would be termed as the “rigging” in MQM`s “ghost polling stations” on the basis of “voters` list prepared in MQM`s Unit and Sector offices”;

4-And lastly, if MQM decides to boycott the election, it would just be an act of face saving to avoid its obvious defeat.

Considering the above standards exclusively set for NA-246, it can be said that the Pakistani media and other political rivals had already decided MQM`s political position/fate even before the polling. Question is, was there any way left in which MQM could be declared as winner after coming first in the election? Logically, no!

Yes, it is true that MQM did not secure 140,000 votes like in the past, but the main reason behind this was relatively low turnout by about 14%. Even then, MQM successfully maintained its percentage of votes of 2013.

To tell the truth, the way people came out on April 23 to cast their votes was an obvious evidence of a high turnout. But, it remained low mainly due to two reasons: Firstly, Rangers checked voters` CNIC`s at various stages which slowed down the voting rate to a big extent. Secondly, countless voters complained that the Rangers personnel did not allow them to even enter the polling stations despite having shown their CNIC`s to them. If there had not been these hurdles during the polling, the voting turn out might have been higher than that of even 2013 which would have gone in MQM`s favor the most

The well-known journalist and anchorperson Hamid Mir, while commenting on the MQM`s victory in NA-246, said, “In fact, Saulat Mirza`s video statement, just before his execution, backfired and went into MQM`s favor”. Similarly, another known anchorperson Najam Sethi also made similar comment. He said, “The Rangers` targeted operation in Azizabad and the arrests of hundreds of Urdu speaking young men benefited MQM.” In other words, these analysts were indirectly claiming that MQM`s victory was not due to its public support, but was the result of the reaction of the on-going operation against MQM.

What if these victimization tactics had really achieved the desired objective, i.e., to politically dent and make MQM lose NA-246 seat, would these people have declared the “leaked” confessional statements, Rangers` actions and the media trial of MQM, as the main reason behind PTI`s success, but not the public support that it had been claiming to have here? MQM`s supports and voters know the answer to this question very well.

It is also important that the Pakistani media kept on carrying out postmortem of MQM`s performance in the by-election as per their desire, but it did not take any trouble to analyze how PTI and JI backfired in the same contest. By the way, it was JI which from the beginning kept on posing as if it would easily win the seat. Even its chief (Ameer) did not hesitate to ask Altaf Hussain to withdraw his candidate from the contest in order to avoid the disgrace. But after the election result, no anchorperson asked Siraj-ul-Haq how he could make such a big claim when his own candidate faced the disgrace by losing his security deposit?

Similarly, PTI could not give the performance that it had been making too much noise of. Despite having lost to MQM in May`s general elections and July`s by-poll in 2013, once again PTI was projected as a new replacing party against MQM in NA-246. But, what happened? Not speaking of winning the seat, it even could not maintain its previous votes that he did in 2013. Everybody knew that PTI had been provided with a golden opportunity to snatch NA-246 as MQM was under pressure due to the hostile attitude of Rangers, “leaked” confessional statements, arrests of its workers and the media trial.

Question is, why couldn`t PTI at least maintain its position in spite of politically so favorable environment? When MQM could display its tremendous performance amidst so adverse situation, why not PTI in so fertile atmosphere? Like political analysts, common Pakistanis knew this very well that if Kanwar Naveed Jamil had got defeated, PTI would have surely termed MQM`s mandate as fake, rigged and exaggerated by unfair means, without giving a damn care to the extremely difficult phase it was passing through. Then, does the PTI`s pitiable performance in so favorable situation not make its own 2013`s mandate doubtful? Not only the by-election of NA-246, the election results of cantonment boards especially in Karachi also exposed the reality of PTI`s popularity in Karachi.

In fact, if we exclude the role of Taliban, political benefit of Zohra Shahid`s suspicious murder, special media coverage to it, Election commission`s decision for re-polling only in PTI`s demanded polling stations of Defence & Clifton and, on top of all, the logistic support form “Pasha”, could PTI even think of wining NA-250 too?

MQM`s rivals must keep this in their minds that a projected leader and his inflated popularity are like a balloon which cannot retain its size longer. The reality eventually has to get exposed soon as in the case of Imran Khan and PTI. On the other hand, MQM was the genuine political party and Altaf Hussain a truly self-made leader. That is why they bounced back with more public support despite so much victimization and the resulted pressure from the military establishment. Therefore, all political rivals, media-men and especially the establishment need to accept the obvious reality of MQM and Altaf Hussain. Otherwise, such evil tactics will only cause more damages to the unity in Pakistan.