Vying to fill the gap

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) high expectations from the Ghotki-Karachi march are not exactly meeting, primarily due to the ruling party’s inaction in the province and its failure in tackling key issues such as inflation, shortage of wheat, sugar and medicines, the serious rift within the party and poorly-organised setup in Sindh and the soaring rate of unemployment.

The people of Sindh, who cast their vote for PTI as an alternate political force-cum-party to PPP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) in Sindh in the 2018 general elections, have been left quite disappointed by its performance as well as its failure to bring the corrupt politicians to justice.

However, the local politicians and analysts dubbed PTI’s Ghotki-Karachi march as a late yet commendable effort and urged the ruling party to keep up the momentum with more such efforts in near future to motivate people of Sindh and make them amply aware of their rights.

Talking to Bol News after welcoming PTI’s central leadership in interior of Sindh, the president of Pakistan Peoples Party Workers (PPP-W) Dr Safdar Abbasi, who is also a convener of Larkana Awami Ittehad (LAI) and a core committee member of Grand Democratic Allinace (GDA), said that the PTI was trying to fill the vacuum of opposition in Sindh.

“PTI has succeeded to form a momentum and setting a direction for the masses. But the PTI must continue with such mass movements and resistance to keep the people motivated. Otherwise, the whole effort will fizzle out, it will have no impact. The government must form a policy on a federal level for Sindh. Besides, it should be ready to take Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F), the nationalist parties and others on board and form a solid alliance to challenge the PPP in Sindh,” he observed.

“I asked foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Prime Minister Imran Khan to deal with politics of Sindh in a different way. If they simply award a ticket to a candidate for general elections, it is not be possible for them to succeed in polls,” disclosed Safdar.

He said that both the GDA – an alliance of various political parties of Sindh – and the locally-arranged alliance of individuals and influential persons of Larkana district have been formed against the excesses and atrocities of the PPP government in the province which has brought Sindh on the verge of collapse in each and every sector.

Foreign Minister and PTI’s central leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi who was leading PTI’s protest march titled “Haqooq-i-Sindh March” started at Kamoo Shaheed in Ubauro town of Ghotki district against the excesses and injustice of the Sindh government, its poor governance, corruption and ineptitude in addressing the people’s problems. The march will culminate in Karachi after passing through many districts and towns of Sindh.

Hundreds of thousands of PTI’s workers and supporters including followers of Shah Mehmood Qureshi nipped out to various venues of public gatherings and stopovers to listen to their leaders. The leaders also held press conferences to apprise people of Sindh of the deceitful tactics used by the PPP in its 15-year rule to to deprive them of their rights and resources.

The PTI leaders held public gatherings at various districts and towns including  Ghotki, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Kandhkot, Jacobabad, Larkana, Nawabshah, Sanghar, Umerkot and other places.

“The presence of such a large number of people at our public gatherings show that they want a change and support Prime Minister Imran Khan,” said Qureshi who fulminated against the long, dark rule of PPP in Sindh. “No public welfare programmes have been launched, no new industries have been set up, no agriculture sector development is seen in the province which is condemnable.”

He said that the PPP’s chief ministers, ministers, lawmakers and other leaders are fleecing people and are just filling up their own pockets to enjoy power and the resources of this region. He urged people to rise against PPP and claimed that PTI would defeat PPP in Sindh in the 2023 general elections and will form its government. “The time has come for people of Sindh to strengthen PTI and get rid of Zardari and his group of feudal lords who are busy plundering public resources for a long time now.

He reminisced that PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a man of character and his daughter Benazir Bhutto was a hardworking, sincere lady but Zardari and Company had hijacked the party and is only busy in making money and enjoying power.

“I urge you to support PM Imran Khan who is sincere, is not corrupt and has also established the largest cancer hospital for people of his country. Do you have the courage to liberate Larkana from the clutches of zar and Zardari?,” he asked the large gathering who replied in the affirmative.

“The PPP is only trying to deceive people by raising slogans of wazir-e-azam Bilawal but the fact is that PPP has no presence in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan and not even in Karachi,” emphasised Qureshi.

Endorsing the foreign minister’s views, Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar predicted that in the 2023 elections, PTI and its allies would form the government in Sindh after defeating PPP in Larkana and other districts. He lauded the services of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who, he said, had proved to be a world class leader. He slammed the rule of Asif Ali Zardari as the head of the state and blamed him for allowing drone attacks in Pakistan’s territory.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs and PTI’s Sindh president Ali Zaidi said that the Sindh government failed to knuckle down to any constructive work during its long rule. “The irony is that chief minister, provincial ministers, lawmakers and members of PPP have become wealthier by eating up massive amount of public funds which were originally allocated for health, infrastructure, irrigation, education and other services,” said Omar

He said that PPP made unprecedented corruption under the leadership of Zardari and even the National Accountability Bureau Chairman admitted that it [NAB] has recovered Rs 10 billion and another Rs 19bn would soon be recovered.

Others who addressed the masses during the long march included PTI parliamentary party leader Haleem Adil Sheikh, PTI senior vice president Sardar Amir Bakhsh Bhutto, PM’s special assistant on Sindh affairs Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) MPA from Larkana Moazzam Abbasi and PPP-Workers president Dr Safdar Abbasi.