It used to be that if you went to Baldia, you were on Farooq Dada’s turf. The MQM muscleman may have been summarily dispatched to a higher plane in 1995 in a police encounter but his spirit lingered on in name. For years no other party’s candidate stood a chance in this part of Karachi. All that changed this April. Farooq Dada’s legacy finally ran out in the by-election held in Baldia Town for its NA-249 seat. The MQM came in sixth with 7,511 votes. With this, the MQM solidified a spectacular losing streak: it has lost the last four out of five by-elections in Karachi. LOST PS-114 (Mehmoodabad)WON PS-94 (Landhi)LOST PS-88 (Malir)LOST NA-243 (Gulshan-e-Iqbal) LOST NA-249 (Baldia) ...