Karachi needs no more ethnic politics, says Shahi Syed

KARACHI: Awami National Party (ANP) leader Senator Shahi Syed on Saturday said Karachi does not anymore need politics based on ethnicity, ARY News reported.

“Karachi is in distress. Areas of the Urdu-speaking community, which once used to be a well-off community, are deprived of electricity. What have they got from the ideological politics,” he questioned while talking in ARY News program ‘Aitraz Hey’.

He said slogans of politicians were never implemented. Everybody wanted others to be held accountable, but nobody was ready to be himself held accountable. “This country has never seen accountability, neither I hope there would ever be accountability in Pakistan,” he said.

“Time has gone when people used to do politics in the name of ideologies. At the time of Mufti Mehmood, Wali Khan, GM Syed, Prof Ghafoor and Shah Ahmed Noorani , politics was moderate. However, now we are only fighting for personal gains,” he said.

Shahi Syed said he never heard a statement in the parliament in favor of Pakistan. All political parties would make speeches in their party interests only, he added.

The ANP leader also condemned using the word mafia, because, he thought, mafia is an abusive word.

He said even a politician should not call another politician a mafia member, except for those who have provenly run death squads. He also said the political parties having militant wings in Karachi were run like mafias.

“They had code words for setting target for killing. For instance, when my bounty was given in the past (the target killer who was arrested later revealed it), the person giving directions said “consume ‘Shahi Supari’”,” he said.