MULTAN: Veteran politician Javed Hashmi said there was no harm in carving out a new province in south Punjab if the people of the region demand it.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, Mr Hashmi said Seraiki was his mother tongue and he spoke Seraiki even in Larkana, Bunnu and Kohat, adding that both Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif ignored the Seraiki belt that was not justified.

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“Entire (southern) region was ignored and no development work was done here. I am not against the leadership of PML-N but they should not ignore this region,” he said.

He said that although he was against dividing people into boxes, he was convinced that Seraiki province should be established.

He said that MQM was the outcome of the policies of Mumtaz Bhutto who declared compulsory the teaching of Sindhi language in entire Sindh, including Karachi.

“Provinces should be established according to the wishes of the people and if the people of Bahawalpur, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions want their separate province, there was no harm in establishing it,” he said.

Mr Hashmi said while he was in PML-N he had got approved various development projects, including colleges and health institutions, for southern Punjab but after he left the party many of the projects in Multan could not be initiated as Shahbaz Sharif was focusing more on Lahore.

He said that a separate province should be established whatever name be given to it and Multan should be made its centre (capital).

He said initially Imran Khan was not demanding mid-term elections and was not willing to topple the government but he was more focused on removing the flaws in electoral system.

“All the political parties including PPP, PML-N, ANP, PTI and JUI-F were complaining that the elections were rigged and agreed to remove the electoral flaws, it was delay on the end of PML-N that forced Imran Khan to demand ouster of the government,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2014