NAWABSHAH: Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) president Syed Sadruddin Shah Rashdi has said that the “Zardari mafia” which owns half of Sindh’s sugar mills is busy fleecing poor growers by denying them official price of cane and forcing them to sell the crop at dismally low rates.

Mr Rashdi said at a workers’ convention at the residence of a party leader here on Sunday that they would wrest back all the money the mills had looted from growers after they came to power and return it to their rightful owners.

He said the Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s “agents” who were exploiting growers were in fact committing their economic murder.

He said that Mr Zardari had raised the slogan of “Pakistan Khappay” after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and many believed then and even now that he meant “we want Pakistan” but in fact he had said “we want (to sell) Pakistan”.

He drew a comparison between Mr Zardari and Pharaoh and said that Pharaoh had all the money and treasures of the world but now he was a mummy kept in a museum and all his riches had sunk into sea.

Mr Rashdi asked workers to visit people door to door and invite them to join their party. The next public gathering of Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) would be held in Nawabshah in the last week of December, he said, adding the PML-F would form the next government in Sindh.

PML-F general secretary Sardar Raheem said that Nawabshah would become a graveyard for “Zardari League” and Zardari’s cronies in upcoming general elections.

He said that on Dec 27 Jiyalas would point their fingers to Mr Zardari and say that they were ashamed that Benazir’s killer was still alive.

PML-F MPA Nusrat Sehar Abbasi said that the days of Zardari and his cronies were over and PPP would soon taste the greatest defeat of its history in next general elections.

She said that when National Accountability Bureau arrested Dr Asim and Sharjeel Memon they fell sick all of sudden and started using cane to pretend that they were so weak they could not even walk but as soon as they came out of jail, they became absolutely fine. Their masks had fallen and people had seen their real faces, she said.

PML-F leaders including MPA Shaharyar Mahar, Imamuddin Shoukeen, Kashif Nizamani, Syed Zahid Hussain Shah, Advocate Shahbaz Daheri and Syed Bagh Ali Shah also spoke at the gathering.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2017