SUKKUR: Sardar Muhammad Muqeem Khan Khoso, PPP MPA from PS-14 Jacobabad and the chieftain of the Khoso community died after a long illness at a hospital Karachi. He was 67 years of age. He was buried in his native village Qadir Pur near Jacobabad on Sunday.

Sardar Khoso started his political career from the Jamaat-i-Islami. He participated for the first time during the 1985 party-less elections and was elected MPA of Sindh Assembly.

He later joined Pakistan Peoples Party. After the death of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, election on party basis was held and Sardar Khoso was given ticket by PPP for NA-156 in which he contested against the likes of former Balochistan chief minister Mir Taj Muhammad Jamali and former speaker national assembly Ilahi Bux Soomro and defeated the heavyweights.

During the 1990 elections, on the application of Soomro, as a result of vote recounting Soomro was declared as winner while Sardar Khoso was declared ineligible. Later he was made district PPP president.

During the local bodies elections under the Musharraf regime, he quit PPP when he was not given tickets for district nazim and naib zila nazim and contested as an independent candidate in which he was defeated.

Sardar Khoso then went on to make his own party namely Samaji Inqilabi Mahaz but was later absorbed in Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid.

In the interim set-up of Sindh cabinet under the leadership of former governor of Sindh, Muhammad Mian Soomro, Sardar Khoso held the post of provincial minister for fisheries.

However, Sardar Khoso let bygones be bygones and rejoined PPP which he announced during a public meeting held in Jacobabad on Dec 21, 2007.

He was elected as MPA from PPP on PS-14 Jacobabad in the 2013 elections and remained loyal to PPP till his death.

Sardar Khoso has left behind four sons Sardar Sakhi Abdul Razzak Khan Khoso, Raja Abdul Raheem Khan Khoso, Qadir Bux Khan Khoso and Jameai Khan Khoso, and two daughters while his fourth wife died a few months ago.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2016