MIRPURKHAS: Pakistan Peo­ples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said that though he stands by farmers protesting against sugar mills over cane price, he will never allow anybody to usurp rights of industrialists.

He warned “unnecessary protests” would not be helpful for the protesting farmers and said PPP government had provided all required facilities to farmers, still some of them preferred to agitate and not listen to the government.

Mr Zardari was speaking at a reception given in his honour by Syed Zulfikar Ali Shah at Syed Khadim Ali Shah village near here on Thursday.

He said that if sugar mills were suffering some loss on buying the cane at official rate “we will talk to them and if they want to go to Supreme Court all well and good. If, however, the mills’ owners are not capable of running their factories they should hand them over to him to run them efficiently”.

That was why, he said, he was making efforts to become partner in the mills so that no mills or growers suffered losses.

In a rejoinder on former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif’s recent statement that he would spill the beans and reveal secrets, Mr Zardari said that Nawaz should also speak the truth about his elevation to power, RO elections etc. Nawaz always relied on props while PPP always fought its way to power with people’s support, he added.

Mr Zardari said that he loved people of Mirpurkhas, Tharpar­kar, Tando Allahyar and adjoining areas because he had passed good days of his life there.

He would love to speak to his people at the public gathering in Mirpurkhas on the birth anniversary of the party’s founding father Z.A. Bhutto on Friday.

PPP MNA Munawar Ali Khan Talpur, former MNA Pir Aftab Hussain Shah Jilani, Sindh PPP president Nisar Khuhro, Faisal Saleh Hayat, Senator Hari Ram Kishori Lal, Syed Zulfikar Ali Shah, also spoke at the gathering which was also attended by Senator Aajiz Dhamra, Sindh Minister for Information Syed Nasir Shah, Minister for Home Sohail Anwer Siyal, MNA Nawab Yousuf Talpur, several former MNAs and MPAs.

Homage paid to Z.A. Bhutto

Our Hyderabad correspondent adds: Speakers at several prgram­mes held to mark the 90th birth anniversary of Z.A. Bhutto paid homage to their leader and said he never bargained over principles and preferred to lay down his life but bow to then dictator.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) provincial leader Abdul Jabbar Khan said at a programme held on Wednesday at the PPP office in Hussainabad and at another event held in Latifabad No.12 that Z.A. Bhutto had contributed to all fields.

Even the worst critics of PPP admitted that Mr Bhutto was a national leader and judi­cious man who introduced the country at international level and played an important role in developing the state.

He said that the elements who did not want to see the country stabilised hatched a conspiracy to hang Bhutto through a dictator but “today Bhutto and his party is popular but the dictator who had him hanged, has gone into oblivion “.

The activists cut a cake and pup up a fireworks display at the programme, according to a press release issued on Thursday.

Activists of Peoples Labour Bureau Sindh, a sister organisation of PPP, also celebrated the birth anniversary on the eve of Bhutto’s birthday which fell on Jan 5.

The bureau members, including Lal Bux Kalhoro, Mohammad Azam Rajput, Ali Akbar Brohi, Shabbir Mallah and others cut the birthday cake at the district council.

The bureau leaders said that it was Bhutto who infused new courage and hope in the disappointed nation after 1971 war and strengthened the country’s defence by launching an atomic programme.

He took revolutionary steps to improve industry, agriculture and telecommunication systems, they said.

They said that his death sentence was a judicial murder and the judiciary and upright leaders were ashamed of it.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2018