MITHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) vice chairman Mukhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is also spiritual leader of the Ghousia Jamat, told his supporters and followers in Tharparkar that successive governments of Sindh were responsible for the abject poverty, lack of basic facilities as well as an unending deaths due to starvation, malnutrition and unavailability of adequate healthcare facilities in this desert region.

Mr Qureshi was speaking over phone to the participants in a public gathering of his party and Jamat in Wadhrai village near Nagarparkar late on Tuesday evening.

The event was organised to pay homage to Paromal Kolhi, a prominent social activist of the region.

The PTI leader severely criticised Pakistan Peoples Party for doing nothing for the downtrodden lot of Tharparkar in its decade-long rule over the province, Instead, he alleged, the PPP and its allies plundered the provincial kitty and destroyed Sindh’s towns and villages as well as its fertile lands by indulging in massive corruption.

They and all those who played havoc with this province would have to face accountability, he said, adding that corrupt elements and those responsible for the multiple crises would be taken to task very soon.

Mr Qureshi said that no power on earth could stop PTI from coming to powers in the next general election and bring about a real change in the country as per the aspirations of the masses.

“No ROs or DROs (returning officers or deputy returning officers) would now dare to change the [election] results as had been resorted to in the previous general election,” he said.

He said that an overwhelming majority of Tharis had voted for him in the overwhelming voted from that the mandate of the Tharis, who had voted him in the polling for the NA-221 constituency in the previous election but the mandate was stolen by PPP in connivance with ROs.

Makhdoom Qureshi announced that he would contest from the same NA-221 constituency to hand a humiliating defeat to his opponents as his supporters and followers would foil all attempts to rig the election or manipulate the results. He observed that PPP had disappointed the people of the country especially its voters by taking no steps to avert a famine-like situation in Thar or saving the lives of women and children facing health and nutrition issues.

Had the successive government taken appropriate actions over the last 10 years, hundreds of lives of Thari women and children might have been saved, he said, and observed that Tharis were still either committing suicide due to abject poverty or dying in search of drinking water or want of proper healthcare facilities.

Makhdoom Qureshi pledged that PTI, after coming to powers, would take revolutionary steps to provide basic facilities to the people of remote villages in the Thar region.

He said other PTI leaders would soon visit Tharparkar. Advocate Bhooromal, Ham­en­das Kolhi, Amanullah Thebo, Shoaib Ahmed and others PTI and Ghausia Jamat leaders also spoke at the gathering.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2018