DADU: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader and former Sindh chief minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi has alleged that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership has started horse-trading in Balochistan to win Senate seats.

Addressing a public gathering at a ground near railway station in Radhan town on Sunday, he accused PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari of using Rs13 billion through property tycoon Malik Riaz for the horse-trading.

Had Zardari used such a big amount for development in Sindh and welfare of its people, the poor masses would have become prosperous and a lot of more hospitals and schools would have been established, he said.

Jatoi said PPP had not served people after assuming powers in Sindh. Closure of primary schools is affecting basic education in Sindh but the PPP government is not paying attention to it. He said poverty due to unemployment and persisting economic crisis was forcing youths to commit suicides in the province.

He held out the assurance that after coming to power, PTI would reopen the assassination cases of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto. He recalled that when he was a federal minister, he got many development schemes executed in Sindh, and claimed that during the rule of PPP, all parts of Sindh remained without any development.

If the allocated development funds were utilised fully and properly in Sindh once, they would be enough for decades, he said.

He referred to the PTI manifesto which envisaged revolutionary measures for improvement of the agriculture sector in the country, including upgrading of the irrigation system. He said every possible steps would be taken to eradicate corruption from institutions.

He said the PML-N and PPP had repeatedly been voted to power in the past but they disappointed the masses and now people must vote for PTI to see a better change. Other who spoke at the public meeting were Sadaqat Ali Jatoi, Syed Kazim Shah, Niaz Abro, Ayaz Sehole, Syed Sher Mohammed Shah, Advocate Sajid Gorar, and Sardar Ashiq Zour.

Earlier, around 1,500 people belonging to various tribes and clans announced their joining the PTI.

The event was organised by Sardar Mazhar Jhatyal and Sardar Shahid Sehole. Party workers from Dadu, Johi, Khairpur Nathen Shah, Mehar, Radhan, Nau Goth and Thrari Mohabbat attended the event. Sindh PTI’s minority wing president Jai Parkash Akrani addressed a its convention held in a hotel in Jamshoro on Sunday.

He told the audience that the PPP and PML-N neglected minorities and their rights.

The wing’s vice president, Mahesh Kumar also spoke.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2018