May 28, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1429

PESHAWAR, May 27: The Awami National Party (ANP) has appreciated the federal government’s decision to shelve the proposed Kalabagh dam project and termed the move its victory.

“With this announcement of the coalition government, the ANP has fulfilled one of its election slogans with the electorates,” President ANP Asfandyar Wali Khan said in a statement issued here on Tuesday.Mr Khan said that giving an end to the Kalabagh dam plan was a welcome sign for smaller provinces and it would create a chapter of cordial relations among the centre and federating units.

He also praised the PPP-led coalition government’s proposed constitutional package and said that it would pave way for the provinces to get their rights for which they had struggled relentlessly for the past several decades. Renaming of the NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa, he said, was a longstanding demand of the people of the province and this would give them cultural identity throughout the world.

Mr Khan said that the ANP had parted ways with the coalition governments in the past over the issue of renaming the province, which was an issue of identity.

He said the coalition government had agreed to rename the Frontier province after 61 years of struggle and they hoped that other issues including provincial autonomy and abolition of the concurrent list would soon see light of the day.

In another statement, NWFP Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti has said the proposed constitutional package of the PPP would prove landmark towards strengthening of democratic institutions in Pakistan.

“The package will balance the powers between the president and the prime minister,” he said, adding that the proposed constitutional package had full backing of the ANP. Describing the Kalabagh dam decision historic, he said this would inculcate a sense of national harmony among the residents of the federating units of the country.

He said renaming the province was a long lasting demand of the people of the Frontier province and the dream of the Pakhtuns was near to be materialized.

ANP senior vice-president Mohammad Adeel also welcomed the decision of renaming the province and said that the people of the province would soon get an appropriate name.

In a statement, he said that if the Nawaz Sharif government had not been dismissed in 1999, the province would have been renamed as Pakhtunkhwa long ago.

He said that it was in 1998 when the provincial assembly had passed a resolution regarding renaming of the NWFP.

Meanwhile, social worker Gulmina Bilal has joined the ANP. She announced this in the presence of party’s provincial chief Afrasiab Khattak at the Bacha Khan Markaz.

On the occasion, Mr Khattak welcomed her into party folds and said that women formed 50 per cent of the country’s population and urged the need to include more women in the party to raise political awareness among the women population.

Hailing the government’s move to shelve the Kalabagh dam project, he said that this would enable the government to divert funds to other non-controversial projects including Diamer-Bhasha and Katzara dams that could fulfil the country’s energy requirements.