QUETTA, May 18: Former Senator Khalid Khan Kakar has called upon the government to introduce a constitutional amendment to give equal political rights and fiscal powers to Pukhtuns in Balochistan province. Khalid Khan Kakar, a former PPP leader, told a press conference on Wednesday that Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai had failed to get the main point of Pakhtun Ulasi Jirga’s declaration incorporated in the Ponam manifesto. Apparently, this point pertained to the creation of Southern Pakhtunkhwa.

Mr Khalid praised President Pervez Musharraf for delivering what he called a courageous speech in Zhob and accepting the fact that Balochistan consists of two ethnic groups — the Baloch and Pakhtuns. According to him, the president also won the hearts of Pukhtuns by announcing plans to build a railway line from Bostan to Dera Ismail Khan via Zhob.

However, Mr Khalid expressed regret at the way PML leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had ignored the opinion of the province’s Pukhtuns while finalising the recommendations of the parliamentary committee set up to resolve contentious issues related to ethnic groups in Balochistan.

He claimed that prior dissolution of One-Unit in 1970 by the then military ruler Yahya Khan without the consent of Pukhtuns of the chief commissionarate province merged the Kalat states in Balochistan, which led to an imbalance in the Pakhtun majority status due to creation of the new province of Balochistan on July 1, 1970.

Mr Khalid was also critical of the role played by the late Z.A. Bhutto, the late Mufti Mahmood and Khan Abdul Wali Khan for allegedly giving constitutional cover in the 1973 Constitution to Balochistan province which was established in 1970. Thus, he claimed, Pukhtuns were deprived of their parallel majority constitutional status.

He also condemned the boycott of the census in 1998 by Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party—an action that, he said, indirectly led to a decrease in the population ratio of Pukhtuns in Balochistan. According to him, the boycott was a conspiracy against the oppressed people of Southern Pakhtunkhwa.