LARKANA: In what appeared to be an impressive show of strength by local standards, the Larkana Awami Ittehad (LAI) — an alliance of politicians against the current leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — took out a rally and held a public meeting outside Jinnahbagh here on Monday to demand that the oncoming local government elections in Sindh be held under the supervision of the army and paramilitary troops.

LAI chief patron Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, speaking to the participants, claimed that a conspiracy was being hatched at Naudero House [local PPP headquarters] to rig the elections.

He, along with Haji Munawwar Ali Abbasi, Amir Bakhsh Bhutto, Moazzim Abbasi, Syed Akbar Shah Rashidi, Shafqat Unnar and other political figures, led the rally, which endorsed the demand through a resolution.

“Corrupt bureaucrats and police officers as well as greedy feudal lords have assembled in Naudero where a plot to manipulate elections is being hatched. If the masses support the LAI, it will hand a worst-ever defeat to candidates of Zardari party”, Mumtaz Bhutto said.

He recalled several popular revolts in the world and said that once they [the public] decided to stand up against corrupt rulers, they would be able to defeat them. Waving towards the enthusiastic participants, he held out the assurance that they would see a change if they backed the LAI in the elections.

Mr Bhutto claimed that [PPP co-chairman] Asif Zardari was made president of the country “under an international conspiracy” although he did not qualify for the top slot under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

“At that time, he [Mr Zardari] was facing 13 corruption and four murder cases,” he claimed, and added that the former president ruined the country. His rule trickled corruption, unemployment and battered peace down to the grass-root, he alleged. “The people of Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had already taken revenge from the PPP by rejecting it in the previous elections but in Sindh, it saved itself by detailing its favourite police officers and election commission staff to systematically rig the poll on a large scale,” he alleged.

“I am witness to the fact that EC staff stamped ballot papers and stuffed them in boxes in polling stations,” he added.

Mr Bhutto said that those who had siphoned off the national wealth were preparing to flee the country but they would not be allowed to escape.

LAI convener Haji Munawwar Ali Abbasi told the audience that the masses had recognised robbers, looters and plunderers. He predicted that those believing in Benazir Bhutto’s politics of principles would win and those deviating from the same would lose in the oncoming LG elections.

Pakistan Peoples Party-Workers president Dr Safdar Abbasi said that today’s rally proved that Larkana was not anyone’s jagir. The previous rulers of the country had failed to maintain sanctity of the vote they had secured in the name of Benazir Bhutto.

Syed Akbar Hussain Rashidi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) termed the rally “a vote of no-confidence against the ruling party, and said the people of Larkana today reposed their confidence in the LAI”.

He told the audience that [PML-F] chief Pir Pagara had ordered his followers to participate in not only this but all such rallies.

Shafqat Huusain Unnar of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Babu Sarfraz Jatoi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Sardar Fida Hussain Gopang and Tarique Nazeer Shaikh were among the others who also addressed the rally.

Leaders and activists of the Shehri Ittehad, Awami Shehri Ittehad and Pakistan Awami Tehreek also attended the rally.

The participants adopted several other resolutions calling for investigations by the FIA and NAB into corruption and botched works carried out in Larkana by the federal and Sindh governments over the last seven years; posting of honest and impartial officers in the district; removal of encroachments; an end to worst-ever power loadshedding; and a drastic cut in power tariff.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2015

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