KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a resolution criticising the federal government for “attempting to remove” former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s picture from the BISP (Benazir Income Support Programme) logo and change the name of Islamabad’s airport, named after the slain leader.

Despite opposing it during the debate, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf members did not go against it when Speaker Siraj Durrani put it before the house.

The resolution reads: “This house condemns the attempts of the federal government to remove the picture of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, twice elected former prime minister of Pakistan and first women prime minister of the Muslim world, from the official logo of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) and renaming Islamabad’s airport from Benazir Inter­national Airport to Islamabad International Airport.”

‘The PTI government, planning to provide houses to five million people, should first provide these quarters to their residents’

The mover said those things were associated with Ms Bhutto’s name by the nation in recognition of her services.

“The assembly resolves and recommends to the government of Sindh to approach the federal government to refrain from taking such steps and take back the said decisions,” concluded the resolution.

While moving the resolution in the house, Pakistan Peoples Party’s Marui Rashdi said the two actions taken by the present federal government were in line with its predecessor and nemesis, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which initiated the name change of the airport in the country’s capital and defeated the very spirit of the programme aimed at helping the poorest of the poor.

Shehla Raza, minister for women development, said the previous PML-N government had relocated Benazir’s picture. She asked if the government would also scrap the treaties which bore Benazir’s signature as well as the laws passed during her tenures.

PTI’s Khurram Sher Zaman opposed the resolution. However, during the debate none of his party colleagues backed his argument.

He claimed that BISP had become a “political scheme” and people were being doled out money on political grounds. He said Benazir was a great leader and the scheme was good, but the money should be given to the poor without political discrimination.

Speaker Durrani said it was a scheme for the poor and he knew the needy people whose lives were supported by the cash transfers, however small the amounts were.

Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani said that at the time BISP was implemented, the PPP had no simple majority in the National Assembly and was a minority in the Senate and then each of those lawmakers was given 8,000 forms for the poor in their constituencies.

He said the MQM had a majority in Karachi and its members got the most BISP forms.

He said the beneficiaries of the scheme were selected after strict scrutiny according to international standards and it was the only scheme which came into being under a unanimously passed act of parliament.

Education Minister Sardar Shah said it was “short-sightedness” of the PTI government, which should show its munificence as Benazir did not belong only to the PPP; she equally belonged to the PTI.

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Abdul Rasheed supported the resolution, rejecting the PTI member’s claim when he said many BISP beneficiaries in Lyari voted for him instead of the PPP.

Speaker Durrani put the resolution before the house and it was passed unanimously.

Pakistan Quarters

Another resolution was moved by Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Khwaja Izharul Hasan, which demanded that the Sindh government contact the federal government for granting ownership rights to the residents of Jahangir Road, Martin Quarters, Pakistan Quarters, Federal Capital Area and Clayton Quarters and send its report to the Supreme Court.

“This house,” reads the resolution, “condemns the police for highhandedness, and resorting to baton-charge and teargas shelling on the residents.”

It said the country’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, had given those quarters to the people for their services after the creation of Pakistan.

Khwaja Izhar said those neighbourhoods were inhabited by the ancestors of the present residents on barren lands. He said ex-premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had also supported those residents and a summary for regularising the quarters kept circulating till 1985.

He said the fourth generation of the quarters’ dwellers resided there and they, including women, were tortured and beaten up on the pretext of the Supreme Court’s order.

He said teargas shells were hurled into houses during the police action.

He thanked the chief justice of Pakistan for stopping the operation and demanded that the federal government grant ownership rights to the residents.

LG Minister Ghani agreed with the mover, adding that the CM had no knowledge of the incident. He said the federal housing ministry had got the Rangers and the police involved in the action.

He said after knowing about the incident, the chief minister got released all those who had been arrested by the police. He said like regularisation of katchi abadis, those occupants should also be given ownership rights

“When the PTI government wants to provide housing facility to five million people, they should first provide these quarters to [their] residents.”

PTI’s parliamentary leader Haleem Adil Shaikh said the housing ministry had not asked the Supreme Court for the action against the quarters in Karachi. Instead, the SC ordered it while hearing another case in Islamabad.

The resolution was passed unanimously.

Earlier, Khurram Sher Zaman said licences of the Regal Market, Frere Market, Garden Market, Empress Market and Jamia Cloth Market had been cancelled by the authorities and their power connections had been cut. He demanded that shopkeepers who had earned their livelihood for decades from those places should not be vacated.

Minister Ghani said he would inform the house after getting necessary details.

The ministers responded to five calling-attention notices moved by Rana Ansar, Nusrat Abbasi, Adeel Shahzad, Rabia Khatoon and Khurram Sher Zaman.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Chawla introduced The Sindh Press, Newspapers, News Agencies and Books Registration Bill, 2018.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2018