LARKANA: The Pakistan Peoples Party-Workers (PPP-W) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) jointly launched a campaign titled ‘Remove mayor to save Larkana’ on Saturday.

PPP-W president Dr Safdar Abbasi along with Moazzim Ali Abbasi led the rally of his party workers taken out from its office in Waleed town. Activists of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) and PPP-Shaheed Bhutto (PPP-SB) joined the rally as their leaders endorsed the campaign organisers’ viewpoint on the Larkana mayor. Several hundred JUI-F activists led by its district emir Maulana Nasir Mehmood Soomro emerged from the Jamia Islamia Isha’atul Quran wal Hadith, located on Dodai Road, to join the rally.

The participants carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans for the removal of Larkana Mayor Aslam Shaikh. They kept raising such slogans while marching on various roads and paused on Bandar Road — where the mayor owns a shop — before holding a sit-in in front of the Larkana Municipal Corporation (LMC) office, where the mayor sits. Neither the mayor nor the LMC staff was present inside.

Addressing the rally and talking to the media, Dr Safdar Abbasi said that the campaign was being launched because the mayor had miserably failed in addressing the sanitation issues of the city and also failed to pay any attention to the restoration and rehabilitation of the battered inter-city roads and drainage system.

“Larkana belongs to the people of Larkana; we are its owners; we will not let anyone siphon off its huge funds meant for the city’s development,” he said.

He observed that not a single road of the city was motorable, and condemned that the opposition-majority UCs had been neglected in terms of development.

“The downfall of the Zardari League has begun and this will be evident from its defeat in the next elections,” he said.

Maulana Soomro said that despite repeated requests, the mayor did not keep his word about looking after all UCs equally. He said sewage was making its way into people houses in the opposition-led UCs and the unhygienic conditions caused serious health issues. He said that in order to divert peoples’ attention from such genuine issues, the district government had coined the idea of holding the ‘Shehr-i-Benazir Festival’. Huge funds had been pumped into the event, he added.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2018