It can be plausibly argued that Punjab's capital city Lahore has clearly surpassed Karachi in terms of creation and upkeep of civic infrastructure. With the availability of sufficient electricity and greater local government emphasis on cleanliness ahead of the July 2018 general elections the relaxed ambience of certain upscale neighbourhoods of the metropolis can easily be compared with the character and atmosphere of various towns of southern and eastern parts of Europe. In addition to the Sharifs who have been playing the most important role in the development of Punjab or mainly the areas that constitute central and northern Punjab since the mid 1980s, the in-between governments of Mian Manzoor Wattoo and Pervaiz Illahi also contributed to the province's development in a meaningful manner. Insofar as Karachi's development is concerned, nearly nine years of Musharraf's rule in the country constituted a period in which this city of teeming millions witnessed the execution of a slew of development projects.
The present plight of Karachi, which has an unfortunate history of ethnic/sectarian killings and bomb blasts, can be attributed to a variety of factors. The principal reason appears to be the ongoing internal Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) rifts or squabbles that have led to instilling among the Karachiites an agonizing sense of uncertainty. The first casualty of the protracted internal MQM turf battles are the civic services that are conspicuous in Karachi by their absence. The entire landscape of Karachi is literally characterised by litter. The city mayor, Wasim Akhtar, who belongs to an MQM group or the Bahadurabad faction that has removed Dr Farooq Sattar from party's convener-ship, has been finding little or no time to carry out his duties as he appears to have been fully consumed by efforts aimed at bringing to an end the intra-party conflicts. Karachi's 'disputed' deputy mayor, Arshad Vohra, who quit the party and joined Mustafa Kamal's Pak Sarzameen Party following his alleged involvement in a money laundering case, is of no help either. To add insult to injury, there is a government in Sindh that is inherently hostile, if not inimical, to Karachi's development needs since the 1977 general elections.
Our policymakers must not lose sight of the fact that Karachi's case is vastly different from Mumbai's. Although the capital of Maharashtra too witnesses the arrival of economic migrants from every nook and corner of India, and even from neighbouring Sri Lanka, in great numbers on a daily basis, both state and union governments give due consideration to the civic needs of the city regardless of which party rules the state or union - Congress or BJP, or any other party. In the case of Karachi, however, both provincial and federal governments show a great deal of ambivalence towards city's issues because it is not represented by parties that rule the province or the country. The city therefore suffers from its lack of ownership both at the levels of province and federal capital. An end to the present MQM-P bickering may bring about some improvement in the criticality of civic issues in the city but a durable solution will remain elusive in the absence of a marked change in federal and provincial governments' political approach to the issues of a city that seems to have restored its reputation of 'the city of lights' due to immensely improved law and order situation in which the Rangers have certainly played a crucial role. KPK in particular cannot be oblivious of the fact that Karachi hosts more Pushtoons than Peshawar does. Equally important is the fact that more people from southern Punjab live in Karachi than in any other city of the country.