LAHORE: Junoobi Punjab Sooba Mahaz (JPSM) president Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtayar has said the people of south Punjab will neither be divided this time nor would let any conspiracy succeed against their demand for separate province.

Mr Bakhtayar urged all the political parties to support the demand and added that the creation of a separate province was only possible with consensus of all the political parties.

“All parties should play their role to make the dream of backward south region come true,” he appealed to the political parties.

Terming the JPSM a voice of over 40m people of south Punjab, he said: “If someone cannot contribute to resolve their problems, they should not create hurdles”.

The JPSM president said the Mahaz was working on a one-point agenda of the creation of south Punjab province for the political and financial well-being of the people of the region. In the past, he added, all political parties made commitments to the people of south Punjab for supporting them to get a separate province, but that commitments were never fulfilled.

Mr Bakhtayar regretted that the budget for the Orange Line Metro Train Lahore was over Rs240bn whereas the budget for the whole south Punjab region stood at Rs206bn.

He said the major issues of the people of south Punjab were poverty and joblessness, mainly because of bad governance and the only solution to these problems was the creation of a separate province.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2018