DADU: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Liaquat Ali Jatoi has said that PPP candidate’s having grabbed the lowest number of votes in by-election for NA-120 (Lahore) is a litmus test for the party’s voter base in Punjab while the situation in Sindh has also worsened for the ruling party.

The scenario of 2018 general elections would change with PTI securing majority of seats to form governments in the Centre as well as all the provinces, said Mr Jatoi while speaking to journalists at his residence in Betto Jatoi village on Thursday.

He predicted that PPP would retain the lowest number of seats in Sindh while its voters’ base in Punjab and other provinces had already shrunk. The PTI’s public meetings in Sindh would increasingly pull greater number of crowds at its scheduled shows in different towns in next few days, he said.

The PTI’s public gathering on Sept 19 at Hyderabad was as successful with as many people as the party’s meetings in Dadu and Sukkur where massive number of people gathered to prove that people of Sindh liked PTI and hated PPP, he said.

He criticised the PPP’s power show in Dadu on Sept 16 and claimed that majority of Dadu residents stayed away from the PPP gathering on his appeal and the number of audience was much lower than that of PTI gatherings in Sindh.

Mr Jatoi dismissed as baseless statement of PPP-Parliamentarians’ information secretary Maula Bux Chandio that he had tried to meet PPP leadership in Dubai to join the party.

Before he joined the PTI, PPP leaders themselves were trying to contact him through various channels to persuade him to join their party but he had flatly refused to become part of the corrupt system, he said.

He said that Mr Chandio’s statement was based on false reports as he had not met any PPP leader over the past 10 years. Mr Chandio’s remarks betrayed immaturity; he should be careful before hurling blame on a political leader like him and avoid spreading fake stories about him, he said.

Mr Jatoi, who was a former Sindh chief minister, said that he had sound reputation and had no corruption charges against him although he had remained Sindh chief minister and federal minister for many years.

He said that PTI chairman Imran Khan was a clean leader who was capable of bringing change in Pakistan. The feudal lords associated with PPP had subjugated the poor while the ruling party had only made the barbaric system of feudalism stronger in Sindh which was now playing havoc with people’s lives and honour, he said.

The murder of an innocent girl, Tania Khaskheli, by a feudal lord in Sehwan taluka was a prime example of how strong feudalism had become in Sindh, he said.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2017